Niger
Niger notes improved food security

afrol News, 6 January - Poverty-ridden and semi-desert Niger makes a happy exception when it comes to food security in Africa this season. The newest surveys show a good access to cereals and continuously falling prices for domestic food products. Nigeriens generally were lucky with weather conditions.

According to the last Niger report from the US agency Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS), the food situation is now "marked by a good access to cereal products on a household level." A good agricultural season had provided the typical households with a surplus of food products, some to be sold on the market, other to be stocked for more difficult years.

According to FEWS, most households in Niger - the world's second poorest country, which is subject to returning droughts - have strict food security regimes. As harvests have been mostly plentiful this season, agricultural products such as groundnuts, sesame and ducks are widely sold on the markets. Food staples, on the other hand - mostly millet and sorghum - were stockpiled for family food security. 

In December 2002, the prices of cereals in Niger's main urban markets - Niamey, Zinder, Maradi and Tillabery - were dropping. The major food staples, millet and sorghum, however still were marketed at higher prices than at the same time last year, mainly due to the unwillingness of local farmers to sell these products and the large demand among merchants from neighbouring Nigeria. Other agricultural products were however sold at very low prices.

While the harvest had been favourable on a national scale, there were however reports of "some local pockets" of food deficits "in all the regions of the country." With a national surplus, increasing stocks of food staples on local markets and falling prices, the food security in these "local deficit pockets" should be without grave consequences. 

The gravest food security problem in Niger this season was however connected to the livestock sector, FEWS reports. Fodder outputs in the pastoral regions of Diffa and Tahoua had been weak, according to the Nigerien Ministry of Animal Resources.

The poor results in these principal livestock regions already had resulted in a decreased movement of livestock to the southern provinces, the US agency reports from Niger. Livestock prices had increased, partly due to the bad pastures and partly due to unsustainable exports to Nigeria. FEWS warns about negative consequences for the many Nigerien households depending exclusively on livestock.

In the rest of the Sahel, the food security situation this season is differing from country to country. In addition to Niger, Burkina Faso had had a very positive season, while Mali and most of Chad had experienced an average year. 

The gravest problems this season were noted in Mauritania, Senegal, Cape Verde and parts of Chad, where big food deficits have resulted in local food crises. Also in The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau, the situation is generally described as "bad" (FEWS) and also Côte d'Ivoire can expect local food deficits due to the political crisis in the country.

Sources: Based on FEWS and afrol archives

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