The United
Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has pronounced that with
continued drought, that another hunger season looms in the Horn of Africa,
reports NaijaAgroNet.
FAO also
said that the subregion needs agricultural support in order to protect livestock, equip families
to plant in rainy season.
According to FAO, countries in the Horn of Africa are
likely to see a rise in hunger and further decline of local livelihoods in the
coming months, as farming families struggle with the knock-on effects of
multiple droughts that hit the region this year.
This is coming
as the growing numbers of refugees in East Africa, meanwhile, are expected to
place even more burden on already strained food and nutrition security.
NaijaAgroNet gathered from FAO in an official statement made available to correspondent, that
currently, about 12 million people across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia are in
need of food assistance, as families in the region face limited access to food
and income, together with rising debt, low cereal and seed stocks, and low milk
and meat production. Terms of trade are particularly bad for livestock farmers,
as food prices are increasing at the same time that market prices for livestock
are low.
Farmers in the
region, the UN agency said, need urgent support to recover from consecutive
lost harvests and to keep their breeding livestock healthy and productive at a
time that pastures are the driest in years.
“Production outputs in the three countries are grim,”
part of the statement read.
Isaac Oyimah/GEE
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