MAURITANIA (31 May)
Seasonably dry conditions prevail. Planting will start following the onset of the rains in late June or July. Emergency provision of agricultural inputs such as seeds will be necessary to enable drought-affected farming families to resume agricultural production.
The 2002 aggregate cereal production is officially estimated at 116 200 tonnes, about 31 percent less than the average for the previous five years and 5 percent below the 2001 poor harvest. Cereal import requirements (including re-exports) for the marketing year 2002/03 (November/October) are estimated at some 323 000 tonnes, of which commercial imports are estimated at 258 000 tonnes, leaving a food aid requirement of 65 000 tonnes. Approximately 420 000 people throughout Mauritania need food assistance. In March 2002, WFP launched an EMOP valued at US$ 7.5 million (16 230 tonnes of food) to assist 250 000 people most threatened by serious food shortages. A Regional EMOP jointly approved by FAO and WFP in mid-December for five drought-affected countries in the west of the Sahel (Cape Verde, The Gambia, Mali, Mauritania, Senegal) included an allocation of 43 632 tonnes of food for Mauritania. As of late May, over 81 percent of this amount was covered by pledges.
Distributions of emergency food aid and subsidized sales of wheat helped improve the food supply situation in Aftout, the Senegal River Valley and the central plateau area of Hodh El Chargui and Hodh El Gharbi where near-famine conditions and high malnutrition rates and related diseases have been reported. However, lack of pasture is accelerating distress sale of animals and stock movements. Animal prices continue to drop despite implementation of a Government programme of subsidized animal feeds. Small-scale pastoralists and single-crop farmers in these areas are considered highly food-insecure population groups.