Browsing: Drought in Somalia

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  • UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says that an extended, multi-season drought is driving acute food insecurity in the region
  • FAO said that 12 to 14 million people are now at risk as crops continue to wither and animals weaken
  • Resource-based conflicts are escalating as competition for water and pasturelands increases, and malnutrition rates are rising in affected areas of Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia

Multiple data, including that of the African Development Bank (AfDB) indicates that Africa holds the key for feeding the nine billion people that will be on Earth by 2050. 

While delivering a passionate speech at Iowa State University in the US in 2017, AfDB’s President Akinwumi Adesina noted that the continent sits on 65 percent of the uncultivated arable land left in the world. 

He said that what Africa does with agriculture will determine the future of food in the world.  Adesina also noted that the

East Africa is facing a serious threat posed by billions of locusts–the most dangerous migratory pests, threatening food security in the region which is also enduring, through climate change, stress impacting food security in Somalia, South Sudan, Kenya and some parts of Tanzania.

According to the Food Security and Nutrition Working Group (FSNWG), East Africa is already being threatened with 19 million people facing acute food insecurity.

In January swarms of locusts made their presence known when they took an Ethiopian plane off course, and invaded Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya and took Uganda and Tanzania in February.

This could be the worst case of locust outbreak over the decades. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), there is an unprecedented threat to food security and livelihoods in the region, as a new swarm is forming and expected in March and April.

UN agronomy experts warned that the wave of locusts …