A Joint FAO/WFP Report on the Crop and Food Situation in the Country s1

/ WORLD
FOOD PROGRAMME / / FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION

A Joint FAO/WFP Report on the Crop and Food Situation in the Country

for the Development Partners Group Meeting of February 2008

Highlights

2. Despite the above indicated favourable food situation at national level, many localised areas notably in the bimodal rainfall areas are likely to face food shortages before the next harvests in June onwards.

3. The high level of post harvest losses, extensive cross border trade and other non-food use for the cereals such as seeds, brewing and feeds, means that less cereals will be available for consumption. The surplus of non-cereals (banana, cassava, potatoes etc) are bulky-and-perishable staples with high transportation costs making the cross-substitution effect between non-cereals and cereals ineffective.

4. Reports from the Tanzania Meteorological Agency (TMA) and other sources indicate poor rainfall performance during November 2007 through January 2008.

4. The Food Security Information Team (FSIT) is planning to conduct a Rapid vulnerability Assessment during 11-24 February in areas with potential likelihood to experience food insecurity during the 2007/08 consumption year.

5. Major staple prices are reportedly rising on most of the markets. This is in part attributed to the localized poor production last season

6. With the current SGR stocks stand at 127,000, the Government should be able to undertake any food intervention recommended from the planned assessment

UN-FAO

1. The Ministry of Agriculture Food Security and Cooperatives (MAFC) released recently a final forecast of the 2006/07 food crop production and 2007/08 food requirements, showing a Self-Suffiency Ratio of 106 percent at national level, as shown in Figure 1. This implies prediction of a surplus of over 625,000 Metric Tonnes. The surplus is largely composed of non cereals including root crops and banana, which are difficult to both transport over long distances and store due to poor transport and processing/storage infrastructure. In this respect, there are locations with various levels of production-requirements gaps.

The potential food deficit regions are Arusha (the districts of Arusha, Longido, Meru, Monduli and Ngorongoro); Manyara (the districts of Babati, Hanang, Mbulu and Simanjiro); Kilimanjaro (the districts of hai, Mwanga, Same and Moshi); Shinyanga (the districts of Kishapu and Meatu); Morogoro (the districts of Ulanga, Morogoro and Mvomero) and Mwanza (Magu district).

Figure 1: Comparison of 2006/07 national food production and 2007/08 food requirement estimates.

Source: MAFC

2. Reports from the Tanzania Meteorological Agency (TMA) and other sources indicate poor rainfall performance during November 2007 through January 2008, as shown in Figure 2. As a consequence, in some places planting was not done, in others it was delayed while in others the crops wilted.

Poor rainfall performance has affected vegetation, with the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) being below average, as can be seen from Figure 3. Despite the vegetation deterioration compared to the long average, no serious effects of poor rainfall have been reported on pasture and water availability.

Figure 2: Precipitation anomaly (mm), 1 October 2007 - 21 January 2008 / Figure 3: Current - Long Term Mean NDVI for Dekad 2 of January, 2008
/ Source: USGS/NASA
Source: NOAA

4. Major staple prices are reportedly rising on most of the markets. This is in part attributed to the localized poor production last season, disappointing production this season and the rising transport costs particularly caused by higher fuel costs.

5. The Food Security Information Team is planning to conduct a Rapid vulnerability Assessment during 11-24 February in areas with potential likelihood to experience food insecurity during the 2007/08 consumption year. The majority of those locations are those identified by MAFC to have experienced food production-requirement gaps as mentioned earlier under article 2 above. Other areas to be covered by the RVA were identified based on other sources. A complete list of the locations to be assessed will be drawn shortly.

6. Zanzibar Food security and Nutrition (ZFSN) policy and programme have been endorsed by the Inter Sectoral Steering Committee (ISSC) and have been submitted to Cabinet. The Government of Zanzibar (RgoZ) is now focusing in successful implementation of the programme and has, in cooperation with FAO, started up activitiesat district levelto strengthen capacity for integration of Food security and Nutrition (FSN) in district level plan. Last week a first training was held in North A district of Unguja. Other districts will follow. The Ministry of Agriculture Livestock and Environment (MALE) is also working closely with several line ministries to ensure that FSN is included in the MTEFs.

7. In response to the Rapid Vulnerability Assessment (RVA) conducted by the Food Security Information Team (FSIT) in August 2007, FAO distributed 183 MT of maize and sorghum seeds to 19 out of the 21 needy districts for planting during the 2007/08 crop production season. As shown in Table 1, the seed benefited approximately 29,000 households.

UN-WFP

The evolution of the current food security situation

· The final production forecast released early January 2008 by the Government indicates that the national food security situation is satisfactory. According to the general food balance sheet (attached) extracted from the report, the nation has a marginal total food self-sufficiency ratio (SSR) of 106%, achieved from combined cereal and non-cereal staples, with cereal production alone meets 87% of consumption requirement.

· Given the high level of post harvest losses, extensive cross border trade and other non food use for the cereals such as seeds, brewing and feeds, much less cereals will be available for consumption, particularly in areas where maize and sorghum are the main staples.

· Although availability of non-cereals (banana, cassava, potatoes etc) meets the requirement by 103%, most of them are bulky-and-perishable staples, geographically they are not readily available in many places. The poor infrastructure and inadequate processing facilities always hinder the marketing of non-cereal commodities in cereal deficit regions, making the commodity cross substitution effect ineffective.

· The performance of short rains “vuli” in the bimodal rainfall areas of the coastal and north-eastern regions has been a mediocre (attached figure from TMA). This has affected many households, making them vulnerable to food insecurity.

· The figure above shows rainfall performance during the October, November, December and January (ONDJ) period in various areas across the country. There has been a poor rainfall performance far below normal levels in both unimodal and bimodal rainfall areas except areas around lake Victoria basin and Pemba Island, which received above normal rainfalls. While the agricultural season is progressing in the unimodal areas of central and southern parts of the country, the season is ending in the bimodal areas and farmers are getting prepared for the long rain “masika” which normally sets in early March through June.

· As a result of the above-mentioned factors, the food security situation in many parts of the country has been deteriorating. Many poor households will have problems in accessing enough food through markets and other means as the prices of the cereals have been increasing beyond their purchasing power.

· There has been a sporadic outcry in the local press from some regions alerting on pending food insecurity including some location in the regions of Shinyanga, Kilimanjaro, Mwanza, Singida and Lindi.

· The government in collaboration with other partners (FSIT) is planning to carry out an assessment the vulnerability in the drought affected areas in mid February to evaluate its impact of the food security and livelihoods of the people.

· The Government should be able to undertake any food intervention recommended from the planned assessment by releasing stocks from its Strategic Grain Reserve (SGR). Currently the SGR is stocked with 127,000 Mts of maize and sorghum, about 84% of the recommended annual stock level.

· Other immediate measures taken by the government include export ban for cereal, though its effectiveness in alleviating food insecurity is questionable. The government is also supporting importation of cereal and an import tax waiver has been granted to the local traders.

· As part of WFP strategy to strengthen the capacity of the government and other partners on food security assessment skills, a total of 30 staff from Government and partner NGOs, at central level, received a two-week intensive training that focused on all the pillars of food security, which are food availability, access and utilization as well as livelihoods approach. Similar trainings are planned for this year at district level.

The training is supported by the WFP regional office in Kampala (ODK) and is part of a regional effort to build national capacity in conducting food security assessments. This initiative is expected to continue with additional training workshops in 2008.

Rainfall reliability zones in Tanzania versus food aid interventions.

· The map shows different zones where major cereals, namely maize and sorghum (including all types of millets) could potentially give higher production based on the amount and reliability of rainfall in the respective zones. Maize, the major staple, would perform well in zone I and II, however, the crop is grown almost in all agro-ecological zones of the country resulting to serious crop loss when rainfall performance is below normal.

· While farmers in the marginal rainfall areas (zone III & IV) have been urged to grow drought tolerant crops such as sorghum and millets, availability of such seeds and reliable markets for the produce have been the major bottleneck.

· Consequently, most of the previous food deficit and food aid interventions have been taking place in these areas (zone III & IV) as the map below confirms.