More than 500 000 people in two provinces of Mozambique would need food aid until next year, according to a special report released on Tuesday by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Food Programme.
The report said that the 515 000 people were from 43 districts of the southern and central regions of the country.
”This population is about 15% of the total population of the two regions but less than three percent of the country’s total population.”
They would need more than 70 tons of food aid to survive until April next year. Of these people, about 355 000 needed immediate food aid of more than 50 tons.
The famine in the country was caused by severe dry weather during the 2001/2002 season which had sharply reduced crop yields in the southern and central parts of Mozambique.
The main cereal producing parts of the country received sufficient rain and crop estimates were favourable, but high internal transport costs made it uncompetitive to move the surplus to the deficit areas in the south.
The report said that agricultural inputs such as seeds were urgently needed to help farmers who were affected by the drought to start producing food again. – Sapa