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Niger's food crisis
24/08/05, Martin Luther King
The humanitarian crisis affecting parts of the Niger, the arid Sahelian
country, this season is as much an issue of the affordability of food
as its local availability, say aid workers. But the problem is not a
lack of food nationally. Total grain production last year-though
dipping below a five-year average-was 22 percent more than the
2000/2001 season, a year in which "there was no major food security
crisis," according to a report by the US-funded Famine Early Warning
Systems Network (FEWS NET).
What has changed this year is that in some parts of a southern belt
sweeping from the border with Burkina Faso to Chad, food prices are
critically high, while the value of livestock has crashed. A 100 kg bag
of millet, the staple grain, sold for around CFA 8,000 to 12,000 (US
$16 to $24) last year but now costs more than CFA 22,000 ($44).
An estimated 3.6 million out of a population of 12 million are affected
by food insecurity, with 2.5 million identified as extremely vulnerable
and requiring food assistance. Aid workers are careful not to use the
term famine to describe what is underway in Niger, the world's second
poorest country.
"I'm definitely not using the expression 'starvation' and I'm
definitely not saying 'famine' as these imply things we don't have
evidence for. This is a food insecurity and nutritional insecurity
crisis," said Victor Aguayo, regional nutrition adviser for the UN
Children's Fund.
Niger agro-pastoral systems have remained unchanged for hundreds of
years, despite accelerating desertification and climate change. Lack of
health services, school opportunities for children, and the traditional
status of women, further punish the poor.
A 1998 UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) profile for Niger,
reviewing ten years of data, concluded: "The rates of malnutrition
among children are high throughout the country. Over 32 percent are
stunted-half of them severely stunted-over 15 percent are wasted, and
over 36 percent are underweight."
FAO noted in its 1998 report that the area most affected by
malnutrition was Maradi. This year, Maradi is at the centre of the
nutrition crisis again, along with zones in five other southern
regions, says WFP.
A survey by the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in April
found acute malnutrition rates in some departments in Maradi hitting
over 19 percent. But what is unclear is how much of that suffering can
be attributed to the underlying vulnerability, and what is a direct
result of the current crisis.
In a normal season in the Sahel, food prices begin to fall from
September through to December, before rising again. Last year,
according to Sow, food prices did not fall, and from January rocketed
to a "level we have not seen before."
Part of the reason was high regional food prices and an element of
speculation, noted Sow. In anticipation that last year's locust
infestation would lead to shortages, traders held onto food stocks
rather than releasing them onto the market.
The locust swarms, while affecting some crops, decimated pasture. Then
there was an early end to last year's rains, and pastoralists found
what remained of their fodder shrivelling in the scorching heat, and
their animals weakening and dying.
Livestock is traditionally exchanged for food, but the terms of trade
have turned against pastoralists. "In the bad areas it now takes two to
three animals to buy the same quantity of food that previously cost
just one," said Sow.
In this current hunger season in the run up to the next harvest in
October, farmers are struggling-and in their tens of thousands failing-
to find the money to pay for food on the markets.
Before significant amounts of aid started flowing there was an
agonising debate over whether free food distribution would undermine
the workings of the free market and create dependency.
In April the government, heavily dependent on donor funding, raised
taxes on a range of consumer goods, including milk and flour, as a
condition for budgetary aid from the International Monetary Fund. Some
of those increases were rescinded after protest marches.
Nigerien President Mamdou Tandja, however, discountenances fears of a
famine in his country. There were food shortages in some areas after
poor rains and locust invasions but this was not unusual for his
country, he explains. Tandja said the idea of a famine was being
exploited for political and economic gain by opposition parties and
United Nations aid agencies.
But the World Food Programme denies that the scale of the problems had
been exaggerated.
September 2005
PETER W.VAKUNTA
DEPARTMENT OF FRENCH AND ITALIAN
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN MADISON
602 VAN HISE HALL
1220 LINDEN DRIVE
MADISON WI 53706-1525
U.S.A
Office 608 262 4067
Home 608 422 6089
Cell 608 381 0407
"The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of the wise man is
in his heart."
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
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