Africa to witness reduced harvests, courtesy of dry weather conditions

NaijaAgroNet: 

The lack of adequate rains and rise in hot temperatures has triggered water stress and adversely affecting crop development in several areas in Africa, reports NaijaAgroNet.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, this weather conditions is very high in the Southern Africa.

The latest Special Alert issued by FAO's Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS), indicated that while cereal stocks in the region are ample, the spell of dry weather and erratic rains earlier in the season signals multiple risks to agricultural yields and may aggravate the impact of the Fall Armyworm pest.

Reduced harvests are "foreseen to intensify food insecurity in 2018, increasing the number of people in need of assistance," part of the alert noted.

NaijaAgroNet gathered that maize production hit a record level in 2017 in the Southern Africa subregion, a welcome development after sharp output declines in the previous year caused by an unusually strong El Niño.

Also, FAO said, Cereal production in the sub-region in 2018 is foreseen to fall due to erratic rains, along with an intense dry period in January.

NaijaAgroNet recalls that the alert comes as FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva, spoke in Khartoum, emphasizing the importance of boosting the resilience of communities, particularly in Africa - in making sure that "Zero Hunger is possible".

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10.6 million Yemenis face food insecurity as conflict escalates

NaijaAgroNet 

    

About 10.6 million Yemenis are now severely food insecure, of which 4.8 million are facing "emergency" conditions, suffering from severe lack of food access, very high and increasing malnutrition, and irreversible destruction of livelihoods, NaijaAgroNet reports.

NaijaAgroNET also gathered that escalating conflict at a crucial time in the country’s cropping season, almost 11 million people in Yemen are severely food insecure and millions more are at risk of not meeting their basic food needs, FAO said today, 15^th March, 2015.

According to FAO Representative for Yemen, Salah Hajj Hassan “We are entering a crucial period for crop production in Yemen and now, more than ever, agriculture cannot be an afterthought if we want to prevent more people from becoming food insecure amidst this crisis,”

NaijaAgroNet was also reliably informed that in the organization's latest assessment, increasing conflict in nearly all major towns across the country is disrupting markets and trade, driving up local food prices and hampering agricultural production, including land preparation and planting for the 2015 maize and sorghum harvests.

More than half of Yemen’s population – some 16 million out of a total of 26 million— is in need of some form of humanitarian aid and has no access to safe water.

The latest escalation of conflicts is expected to further increase food insecurity in the poverty-stricken country. Paradoxically, some 2.5 million food producers, including farmers, pastoralists, fishermen and agricultural wage labourers, are among those identified as food insecure, NaijaAgroNet learnt.

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