WFP Central America Drought Situation Report #02, 12 December 2014

Highlights

 Of the 2 million people affected, WFP as-sessments indicated that more than 1.6 million people are suffering from severe or moderate food insecurity in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. While no as-sessment was conducted in Nicaragua, initial analysis of secondary data indicat-ed an estimated 460,000 people may have been affected.

 The drought disproportionately impacted the dry corridor where many farmers are only able to harvest during the primary cropping season.

 Furthermore, all four countries have suf-fered from coffee rust which has affected 55 percent of land cultivated with coffee, seriously endangering the livelihoods of almost two million people (of which 715,000 are food insecure) who depend on coffee production as a primary source of income.

 The assessments concluded that the re-gion was affected by both a delayed arri-val of the rains (April-May) and pro-nounced deficits during the most sensi-tive crop development stages (July).

 All four governments have launched sub-stantial feeding programmes in response to the drought.