Search NaijaAgroNet

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

FAO sets $50m emergency fund for Ethiopia drought





The amount of drought witnessed at the end of 2015 and cross over to 2016 is giving the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) a lot of concern, hence it voted the sum of $50m for emergency in the drought-ridden Ethiopia, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The droughts attributed to the strongest El Niño weather episode in the last several decades, FAO said, has caused repeated crop failure, decimated livestock herds and driven some 10.2 million people across Ethiopia into food insecurity.

FAO revealed this to NaijaAgroNet in its emergency response plan to urgently protect livestock and rebuild crop production in the Horn of Africa nation. 

According to the FAO Representative for Ethiopia, Mr. Amadou Allahoury, the outlook for 2016 is very grim, adding that "After two consecutive seasons of failed crops, the success of the main cropping season that starts now will be critical to preventing conditions from worsening."

Mr. Amadou equally said that continued drought throughout the beginning of 2016, also means pasture will become even more scarce, which will negatively impact livestock keepers that rely on those grazing lands and water points for their food security.

"Food overall will become harder to access if we continue to see prices rise, food stocks deplete and livestock become weaker, less productive, and perish," he said. 

The El Niño phenomenon is associated with the abnormal warming of sea surface temperature in parts of the Pacific Ocean that has severe effects on global weather and climate patterns - leading to reduced rainfall and drought in some regions and heavy rains and flooding in others. 

Under the current El Niño, crop production in Ethiopia has dropped by 50 to 90 per cent in some regions and failed completely in the east. The drought resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of livestock.

Isaac Oyimah/GEE +Naija AgroNet @FAO News
... Linking agrobiz, sustainable environs, people & technology

No comments:

Post a Comment

Share ur views here