Mozambique: More Than 350,000 Facing Food Shortages

AllAfrica.Com, 24 December 2008

Johannesburg — More than 350,000 people in Mozambique are in need of food aid with hamstrung aid relief agencies saying the onset of the annual flood season in Mozambique will also jeopardise other food interventions for vulnerable children, home-based care recipients and people living with HIV/AIDS.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said 356,500 Mozambicans are in a "state of acute food insecurity and in need of immediate food assistance" as a result of rising food prices and extreme weather conditions that "wreaked havoc in the country in 2007 and early 2008."

The aid agency said its relief operations were being hampered by a lack of funds and time was fast running out as the flood and cyclone season, which starts in December and lasts until March, often creates a new disaster response caseload.

Up to US$8.4 million is required to purchase 10,840 metric tonnes of cereals to supplement household reserves and help families cope with elevated food prices during the worst months of the lean season - from January 2009 through to just before the annual harvest in April/May.

Maize prices in Mozambique are at or near historic highs in inflation-adjusted terms, according to a US-based Michigan State University (MSU) study, The 2008/09 Food Price and Food Security Situation in Eastern and Southern Africa: Implications for Immediate and Longer Run Responses.

Poor production and a higher demand for cereals have helped push prices up in Mozambique. Rising international prices for rice and wheat have also affected maize prices in urban and nearby rural areas, according to the MSU study.

Reducing high transaction costs between northern Mozambique, which produces enough maize and the south, which is chronically food deficit could help bring prices down, suggested the study.

Flood season

Cyclone Jokwe, which raged across central and northern Mozambique in March 2008, claimed 13 lives, destroyed more than 2,000 houses and affected more than 200,000 people.

At least 100,000 hectares of crops were washed way in the northern Nampula province alone, according to a report by the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent's Disaster Relief Emergency Fund.

"The cyclone destroyed the main economic activities in the province, which is cashew beans farming and fishing as it destroyed the trees and fishing boats," the report said.

About 80 percent of the country's 21 million people depend on subsistence farming and 54 percent of the population still lives below the poverty line.

The WFP said funding shortfalls were making it difficult to pre-position food stocks ahead of the current flood season.

"Current funding shortfalls are also hampering efforts to pre-position food stocks ahead of Mozambique's annual cyclone and flood season, which starts in December.

"At present, WFP has no resources on hand to respond to a potential new flood or cyclone emergency."

People with HIV/AIDS

The WFP said the lack of funds and the onset of the flood season also put other relief interventions directed to disadvantaged children and people living with HIV/AIDS in jeopardy.

Mozambique has a HIV/AIDS prevalence rate of 16 percent among people aged between 15 and 49 years, according to the 2008 HIV and Nutrition Status Report on Mozambique, which was funded by the World Bank.

An estimated 441,000 children younger than 18 had lost one or both parents to AIDS in 2007, twice the number in 2003, said the report.

WFP warned that the shortage of funds would force them to ration food and cut beneficiary numbers across programmes.

WFP is already rationing food in Zimbabwe and Ethiopia.

Read more... Sphere: Related Content