Text: UN Report Says 6 Million Face Food Shortage in Afghanistan
Following is the text of the joint FAO/WFP news release:
Source: Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
Date: 16 Aug 2002
UN agencies say: Crops improve in Afghanistan, but 6
million people still need food aid - Joint FAO/WFP news release
ROME, 16 August 2002 - Some 6 million people in Afghanistan will remain
highly vulnerable to food insecurity and will continue to need relief food
assistance over the next year, two UN agencies warned in a joint report released
today. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP)
report says that overall cereal production in Afghanistan has staged a recovery
in 2002 despite military and political upheavals that coincided with the
planting season and a serious locust outbreak in some parts of the country.
"Despite the recovery in this year's agricultural production and the
renewed sense of hope, millions of Afghans, particularly pastoralist Kuchis,
have little or no access to food due to serious erosion of their purchasing
power and/or loss of productive assets." according to the report.
"Effects of successive years of drought, deteriorating irrigation and other
infrastructure, inability of farmers to access necessary agricultural inputs,
lack of employment within and outside agriculture, and a vicious rural
indebtedness among others, render a timely and effective intervention all the
more essential."
Besides urging the continuation of food distributions, the report calls for
sustained investment in the agricultural sector, particularly the
rehabilitation, upgrading and maintenance of the irrigation infrastructure to
ensure a speedy recovery of the Afghan economy.
Total cereal production in Afghanistan is estimated at about 3.5 million tonnes
for 2002, that is 82 percent above last year's drought affected crop, but still
about 4 percent below the harvest of 1998. As a result, the report says
Afghanistan will need to import about 1.4 million tonnes of cereal during the
2002/03 marketing year that runs from July to June. Commercial imports are
estimated at 911,000 tonnes, about the same as the average level of the previous
three years, according to the report. Some 219,000 tonnes of emergency food aid
has been pledged, or is already in the pipeline, leaving an uncovered gap of
249,000 tonnes.
The report says that the previous three years of drought have had a devastating
effect on range vegetation, as well as on the availability of feed from grain
and crop residues, especially in rainfed areas. As a result, there has been
widespread devastation of livestock production with animal numbers declining by
as much as 60 percent since 1998, and most dramatically following the massive
deaths and distress selling of animals during the summer and autumn of last
year.
Currently, domestic sales of livestock are reported to have dropped by about 50
percent, while animal prices increased by at least 30 percent throughout the
country over the last year. This has led to a scarcity of meat, draught animals
and breeding stock, which prompted imports of large ruminants and poultry from
neighbouring countries. The imports pose serious health risks for the surviving
Afghan livestock, because they are imported without quarantine. The report calls
for urgent and appropriate veterinary and control measures to prevent the spread
of animal diseases from neighboring countries into Afghanistan which could
further exacerbate the problems facing livestock production.
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