Posted on March, 28, 2019 at 10:24 am
THE World Food Programme (WFP) has pledged to provide humanitarian support to countries in East Africa including Tanzania as drought has started taking its toll in some regions due to rainfall deficit and persisting dry conditions.
“Drought is currently taking shape in East Africa. As a humanitarian organization dedicated to address hunger we will support any of the areas reported to have food deficit,” said WFP country representative Michael Dunford when addressing journalists in Dar es Salaam yesterday.
Dunford said delayed rains in some parts of Tanzania are likely to threaten food security. WFP will be ready to assist the country in future as it is now doing in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi which have been hit by serious flooding and damage, he stated.
WFP in Tanzania has already dispatched a staff team to provide various humanitarian provisions to flood victims in Malawi and Mozambique. The country mission is ready to respond to assistance requests from Kenya following persisting drought in the country’s northwest region of Turkana, he pointed out.
WFP has so far bought all the 36,000 metric tonnes of maize available in the country as of January this year. The maize worth about $ 9 million was purchased from the Tanzania National Food Reserve Agency (NFRA).
“We are now working on logistics to transport the food to targeted areas including refugee camps. WFP is responsible of feeding all the refugees in Tanzania with support from various donors including the US government,” he pointed out, elaborating the organization plans to buy another 120,000 metric tonnes of food products after the 2019 harvest season.
Dunford said that transport challenges will soon be resolved following the recent signing of an agreement between WFP and Tanzania Railways Corporation (TRC) to improve efficiency of railway transport.
Last week, farmers in Kilosa district, Morogoro region raised concern that prolonged drought has affected maize production, their key staple food, touching off decreased production that may send thousands of people into hunger this year.
The farmers told visitors that their maize crop has dried up in the fields while they can’t do more planting as the planting season approaches its end.
Berega ward councillor Wilmod Machela said that farmers are helpless as villages like Kiyegeya, Berega, Mgugu and Dumbalume have lost crop potential by up to 80 percent owing to drought.
If the drought continued to the end of the month, the ward would face severe hunger as the villagers invested heavily in the maize crop as a food and cash crop.
Agriculture research officer Ismail Ngolinda from the Tanzania Agriculture Research Institute (TARI-Ilonga) in Kilosa said drought has been a big challenge in recent years. He recommended that farmers should try moderately drought tolerant maize varieties such as the Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA).
Source: IPP Media