Crop Conditions Improve in Niger

MARADI - Oct 6/06 - IRIN -- Good rainfall in recent months has boosted harvests in arid Niger and reduced the risk of more hunger for a population that has long been vulnerable to food shortages, local authorities said.

"Look at my farm. As far as the eye can see, the situation is good," farmer Sani Saadou told IRIN. "If no locusts come to ruin our work this year, I will double or triple last year's cereal output."

Niger, a landlocked country in north-central Africa, topped international news headlines last year when failed rains and a locust invasion combined with high market prices for staple foods to create the country's worst food shortages in recent years.

The annual rainy season, which usually runs from June to October, provides the only window for Niger's farmers to grow enough food for the year ahead.

"Two years ago, we really suffered from hunger. One year out of two, we suffer from drought or insect invasions," said Saadou, whose farm is 800 km east of the capital, Niamey.

But there has also been a drawback to the heavy rains.

The southern Maradi, Dosso and Tillabery regions have suffered from flooding. Nearly 47,000 people lost their homes because of the heavy rainfall. The floods also wiped out swathes of vegetable gardens and devastated herds of livestock.

Generally, however, this year's rainy season, which started late, has been particularly favorable for crops all across the country - particularly in the south from the western town of Tillabery to the towns of Maradi and Zinder to the east.

"Thanks to the good water conditions observed during the last ten days of September, farming conditions are satisfactory, with millet and niebe (a local cereal) starting to be harvested," Niger's meteorological bureau said this week.

It said that harvests of groundnut and sorghum crops have also begun in the growing areas of Maradi, Tahoua and Zinder.

A good supply of cereals in the local markets has contributed to lower prices - slashed in half in some areas, villagers say.

In the Boboye region, 140 km west of Niamey, the price of millet reached 250 CFA francs (US $0.48) per measuring cup, from nearly US $1 per cup six weeks ago, Hama Badjo, the head of Fotti-Deye village said.

Badjo said he expected those prices to ease more in the coming weeks, which would make cereals available to those who need help recovering from last year's shortages.

Livestock has also benefited from the abundant rain. Water is now available throughout the country, allowing breeders to water their cattle and other animals, the meteorological service said.

"This year, we will be able to feed our animals, there's grass everywhere and water fuels the ponds," said Cheffou Hassane, a breeder from Dakoro, 120 km north of Maradi.

Most of the 12 million people of Niger, once a net food exporter, survive on subsistence agriculture. Yet each year more of the world's poorest country's vast, dusty territory turns to desert.

According to the United Nation's World Food Programme (WFP), about 70% of Niger's 13 million people live below the poverty line and 3.8 million are undernourished.

Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2006

Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)

Copyright (c) 2006 UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs