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Monday, September 14, 2015

El Niño causes harvest decline in Central America





 
El Niño, a weather phenomenon characterized by abnormal warming of surface waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean has caused major decline in cereal production in Central America, NaijaAgroNet reports.


Early estimates from Central America’s main de prima harvest suggest declines of as much as 60 per cent of maize and 80 per cent of beans due to dry weather El Niño-related dry spells are known to delay planting, reduce planting areas and stifle crop development


According to Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), prolonged dry weather associated with the El Niño phenomenon has severely reduced this year’s cereal outputs in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, putting a large numbers of farmers in need of agricultural assistance as the sub-region tries to recover amidst ongoing dryness.  This, NaijaAgroNet learnt, is the second consecutive year that the region's main season cereal harvest has been negatively affected by severe dry weather related to El Niño.

The Central American Agricultural Council -- headed by agriculture ministers of the sub-region – has declared a state of alert after hundreds of thousands of subsistence farmers have suffered the partial or total loss of their crops planted for the main grain season that runs from May to September.


With hundreds of thousands of families affected by severe food losses, the governments of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua have begun distributing agricultural aid packages, including seeds, fertilizers and irrigation pumps, to help farmers recover as much as possible in the second planting season, now under way, NaijaAgroNet reports.

The Economist in FAO’s Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS) unit covering Latin America, Felix Baquedano, said, “This year's El Niño's impacts are even more intense than last's. After two years of intensifying dry weather, it’s critical that we support farmers to recuperate some of their losses by helping them achieve stronger yields in the second season,”

Cyriacus Nnaji/GEE

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Pix: Felix Baquedano,

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