NEPAL: Floods, landslides hit food stocks

Photo: Naresh Newar/IRIN

Many residents of the Terrai are now food insecure as a result of this month's unusually heavy rains

KATHMANDU, 22 October 2009 (IRIN) - Food insecurity has increased for thousands of families in Nepal’s far- and mid-west regions as a result of flooding and landslides earlier this month.
 
According to the Nepal Red Cross Society (NRCS), the country’s largest humanitarian organization, more than 60 people were killed and some 4,000 displaced as a result of the unseasonal rains; 25,000 families, most of whom have lost their food stocks, are affected.
 
“The worst impact has been on food security during this harvesting period. This has left many farmers in a state of shock,” Pitamber Sharma, head of the NRCS disaster department, told IRIN in Kathmandu.
 
Many had been wrong-footed by the late rains: “This is absolutely shocking for us all because the monsoon had never been delayed like this,” Sharma said.
 
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said thousands of families had lost stocked food and seeds for the next planting season.

Emergency food will be a major need of flood- and landslide-affected families over the coming three months, with many paddy fields still under water, and large areas of harvested crops washed away, it said.

The districts affected include Dadeldhura, Acham, Bhajang, Bajura, Doti, Baitadi, Jumla, Rukum and Darchula in the Hill Region and Kailali, Kanchanpur, Banke, Bardiya and Dang in the Terai Region bordering India.
 

Photo: David Swanson/IRIN

A young girl in Nepal's western Jumla District suffering from chronic malnutrition

“Some of the affected districts are already among the most chronically food insecure areas - where people grow their crops largely for subsistence. And when they lose them, they don’t have anything,” Richard Ragan, country representative of the World Food Programme (WFP) in Nepal, told IRIN.
 
“Last winter’s drought had already affected Nepal’s food production greatly and many of the families still do not have enough production to sustain the food security of their families,” Oxfam’s Prabin Man Singh said.
 
Migration

The result has been migration to the cities and this was likely to continue unless more food aid was provided and rural livelihoods in these areas were supported, he said.
 
Some agricultural experts say there is also an urgent need for further studies of landslide-vulnerable areas.
 
“The landslides and floods in future are possibly going to increase due to the constant erratic rainfall due to climate change,” Narendra Khadga Chettri, director of Support Activities for Poor Producers of Nepal (SAPPROS), a local NGO, said.
 
“The landslides in the hills this time were quite huge and there was a lot of damage. We have to absolutely be alert now,” Chettri warned.
 
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