ERITREA: Food situation still bleak

NAIROBI, 25 March 2004 (IRIN) - The food security situation in Eritrea remains bleak despite a partial improvement in agricultural production last year, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies reported on Wednesday. In an operations update, the Federation said cereal production in 2003 reached 57 percent of average production, but was only 19 percent of annual consumption requirements. "According to observations by the Red Cross of Eritrea and UN reports, the situation requires urgent attention," it said. According to the Federation, current crop and food-aid stocks in the country are not expected to last beyond March when the hunger season begins. It singled out the lowlands of Anseba and Gash Barka as areas which had received no rains and where the drought situation had since worsened. On Monday, the USAID-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS Net) reported that the Eritrean Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (ERREC) had said available food stocks were only sufficient to cover two months of food aid for an estimated 1.9 million in need. "The bahri rains [which normally fall between November and February] are performing poorly, negatively affecting crops and pasture in the eastern escarpments and coastal areas of the northern Red Sea Zone. Although rains have improved over the past two weeks, they are too late to reverse the damage already done to rain-fed crops," FEWS Net said. It added that the Ministry of Agriculture, in collaboration with the East African Desert Locust Control Organisation, had sprayed over 3,800 ha of land in the Red Sea Zone, where locust, aphid and grasshopper outbreaks were further threatening production. According to FEWS Net, however, the 2004 appeal to donors, which included a request for US $147.2 million ($97.8 million for food needs and $49.4 million for non-food requirements), had received little response. It said the ERREC stock status for February showed that only 26,345 mt of food had been pledged, of which only 5,601 mt had arrived in the country. "With the existing general distribution rate, the current stock is enough to last only through the end of March. Hence, urgent action is required by the international donor community to fill the expected food gap in Eritrea from March onwards, especially given the long lead-time required between pledges and actual distributions," it said.