Rain, crossborder trade boost EA’s food security

Food security, a persistent challenge in East Africa, has gradually improved following increased rainfall recorded last year.

According to the latest United States Agency for International Development (USAid) Famine Early Warning System (Fews Net) report, the rains had helped improve livestock productivity and value as well as increased food availability in the 1.82 million-plus square kilometre region.

Informal and formal crossborder trade has also played a major role in boosting food security.

For example, six sites monitored by Fews Net recorded 20,327.31 metric tonnes of cereals and pulses crossing the borders of Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia since February.

Moreover about 4,490.76 metric tonnes of non-food items and 11,587 livestock crossed the Uganda-Kenya border since early this year.

“Further improvement in food security is expected due to the July harvest in the bimodal areas of Uganda, and parts of Kenya and Somalia,” the report added.

The improved condition is attributed to the rains that fell in most of the high potential cropping areas of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and the agro-pastoral regions in the March-May period whose intensity, duration, and coverage was largely normal throughout the region.

Some of the crops expected to record increased production are maize, millet and sorghum — all staple foods in the region.

In the pastoral and agro-pastoral areas of northern Kenya, Somalia, parts of Ethiopia and Sudan, improvements in rangeland conditions have increased livestock productivity and value.

In addition, the lifting of the livestock import ban by Saudi Arabia and increased demand for beef in Jordan, Egypt and other Gulf states have substantially pushed livestock prices above the five-year average.

Significant reductions in cereal prices have been reported in Kenya, Uganda and parts of Ethiopia, mainly due to increased market supplies after farmers released their old stocks before the main harvest.

The report says the falling trends are likely to continue, especially in bimodal areas of Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania, as the main harvesting season approaches.

“These price decreases are expected to improve poor and market-dependent households’ access to food,” the report adds.

In their budgets this year, the five East African Community member countries made agriculture and infrastructure development their top priority.

Kenya, for example, significantly scaled up its investments in agriculture to hasten recovery from global recession and drought.

Out of the record Ksh1 trillion ($12.5 billion) budget, agriculture and rural development was allocated $0.4 billion.

Uganda and Tanzania also increased their budgets to counter an increasingly volatile cycle of droughts and floods that has made electricity and agricultural production less predictable.

However, despite the bumper harvests, acute food insecurity conditions will persist and the number of people in need of assistance is likely to increase in the August-September period in conflict-affected regions, namely Somalia and parts of Sudan.

According to Fews Net, in the larger East Africa region, including Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia, about 17 million people are highly or extremely food insecure, a drop from an estimated 20 million in July last year.