WFP SEEKS LONG-TERM RESPONSE TO CENTRAL AMERICA HUNGER
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Central America's subsistence farmers are struggling to cope
with the consequences of a serious drought - the latest in
a long line of natural disasters that have exhausted their
food reserves.
Local WFP officials are calling for a long-term plan that
looks beyond emergency aid and helps reduce the vulnerability
of poor farming communities in Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala
and El Salvador.
December 12, 2001 - With hundreds of thousands of subsistence farmers still relying on food aid to survive Central America's latest drought, WFP has called for long-term planning to help vulnerable community's better cope with the region's frequent natural disasters.
The failure of rains in Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador has left corn and bean harvests in ruins and triggered food shortages among an estimated 1.5 million peasants.
An emergency response
alone is just not sufficient because, in Central America,
there's usually another disaster around the corner 
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Deborah Hines, WFP senior
programmes adviser for LA and the Caribbean |
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WFP is currently distributing food aid to the 366,000 most
severely affected drought victims, but officials say they
need at least another 6,600 tonnes to put a long-term plan
into place to help disaster-prone rural communities recover
more quickly when the next crisis strikes.
"An emergency response alone is just not sufficient because
in Central America there's usually another disaster around
the corner," says Deborah Hines, WFP senior regional programme
adviser for Latin America and the Caribbean.
LONG LINE OF DISASTERS
The drought is the latest in a long line of natural and man-made
disasters to hit the volcano-lined countries of northern Central
America.
After Hurricane Mitch, which killed 9,000 people in Nicaragua
and Honduras in 1998, two major earthquakes in El Salvador
earlier this year, the latest disaster - for some farmers,
the fifth drought in five years -has pushed communities already
struggling to survive over the brink.
NO MORE LEEWAY
"Many of these people have been struggling to cope for four
or five years," adds Judith Thimke, WFP officer in charge
of Latin America and the Caribbean, "there's no more leeway
left."
Subsistence peasants in the drought-affected areas of Central
America traditionally keep back some of their produce to get
them through the dry season. This year, many have already
used up all their resources.
To make matters worse, low prices for coffee and banana exports
have left farmers unable to replenish supplies while recent
flooding in Nicaragua and Honduras has further limited government
resources.
According to Thimke, some families are now surviving on one
meal per day, with the worst-affected reduced to eating animal
feed or foraging for roots.
There may be worse to come:
- El Salvador: some villages have totally lost their
maize crops for the second time this year.
Preliminary reports from a Food Needs Assessment, being
conducted by WFP, non-governmental organisations and the
government, suggest families in the worst-affected areas
are likely to remain food insecure until the next harvest
in August 2002.
- Guatemala: many families did not plant for the
second yearly planting season either because of a lack of
seeds or for fear of losing their crops again. Those that
did face a dry, cold December and January.
It is expected that 3,500 families will receive WFP assistance
in February in addition to the current caseload of 20,000
families.
- Nicaragua: a joint USAID/WFP assessment of drought-affected
families (see box) recently presented to donors warned
of a real threat of food insecurity over the coming months.
WFP completed its drought-related intervention last week.
Over the past three months, the Agency has provided supplementary
feeding to 59,500 school children while 45,415 people who
lost half their maize crop, participated in WFP food-for-work
activities.
- Honduras: the country continues to require WFP
food aid for two emergency situations: droughts and floods
caused by tropical storm Michelle.
BEYOND EMERGENCY RELIEF
Over the past three months, WFP has drawn on a pre-existing protracted relief and recovery operation, launched in the wake of Hurricane Mitch, to provide drought victims with emergency food assistance.
However, the Agency believes it is time to move beyond emergency relief with national governments investing in better infrastructure health care and education to remove a Central American dichotomy which often sees crops withering and dying within five miles of a river.
"We need to overcome the current disaster and prepare for the next one," says Hines, "We want to ensure people have enough to eat today but also give them the ability to bounce back tomorrow."
Wealthier farmers in drought-affected areas quickly remedy the
problem through irrigation - something that their subsistence
counterparts cannot afford.
Most of Central America's rain-starved areas abound with greenery
and many hungry farmers live within walking distance of markets
heaving with sacks of corns and beans
Together with local governments and humanitarian groups, WFP is currently searching Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras for homegrown examples of drought-affected communities that have managed to stay afloat; the Agency would like to apply these 'models' to other areas.
Projects to improve food security will include:
- Small-scale schemes to make irrigation more widely available
- Anti-soil erosion projects or agro-forestry
- Mixing crops and trees to reduce over-reliance on a single product such as corn
"Going back to 'normal' is no longer good enough," says Jordan Dey, WFP spokesman
for Latin America.
"Responding on a crisis by crisis basis helps us save lives
in the short-term, but we need to dramatically improve food
security in the long-term."
| WFP/USAID Nicaragua Study |
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In November, WFP/USAID assessed the full impact of
the Central American drought in 40 Nicaraguan districts
where farmers lost more than half of their harvest
The resulting joint report concluded that the drought
was part of a prolonged crisis which has left many Nicaraguans
dependent on emergency food aid
- while most farmers will have a modestly productive
second harvest, this will not be enough to overcome
the cumulative setbacks of natural disasters and falling
agricultural prices
- according to 65 percent of families, 1997 was the
last good harvest; the report concluded they had been
living in permanent emergency conditions
- lack of access to seed meant some 46 percent of
farmers planted less in the second planting season
that the first; 15 percent did not plant at all
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| Counting
the Cost |
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Honduras
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Number of people
severely affected by drought:
266,010 |
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Number of people
to receive WFP food: 90,925 |
| Nicaragua
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Number of people
severely affected by drought:
470,000 |
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Number of people
to receive WFP food: 44,000 |
| El
Salvador |
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Number of people
severely affected by drought:
200,000 |
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Number of people
to receive WFP food: 200,000 |
| Guatemala |
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Number of people
to receive WFP food: 63,510 |
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In response to Central America's latest natural disaster, WFP has invited donors to give additional funds to its three-year-old Operation Mitch regional rehabilitation operation.
This so-called protracted relief and recovery operation, which covers the four-affected countries, is based on models tried and tested in countries such as Sudan and the Great Lakes nations of Central Africa. Food aid is deliberately targeted at vulnerable sectors of the population repeatedly hit by man-made and natural disasters ranging from famine to civil wars.
Where food is urgently required within the region, WFP has been drawing on its ongoing development programmes to cover shortfalls.
|
 Funding
Proposal for drought victims |
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At Nueva Esparta in El Salvador, some 9,000 subsistence farmers lost their entire corn and bean crop
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Aug
22, 2001: WFP recives 4,800 mt donation
from US
for Central America Drought |
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| Aug
2, 2001: Food crisis - drought hits
more than 1.4 million in Central America |
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A series of natural disasters have exhausted the food reserves of Central America's poorest families. Earthquake devastation in El Salvador, January 2001
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