FAO/GIEWS - Foodcrops and Shortages 06/02 - SUDAN (3 June)
Harvesting of the 2002 wheat crop is complete and output is expected to be similar to last year’s crop of about 300 000 tonnes. The 2001/02 total cereal production, estimated at 4.75 million tonnes, is about 36 percent above last year’s crop and about 13 percent above the average of the last five years.
Despite the overall good harvest, the recent escalation of conflict in southern Sudan, particularly in Bahr-el-Ghazal, Eastern Equatoria and Western Upper Nile, is set to exacerbate an already poor food security situation due to continuing civil strife and adverse weather. Large numbers of people have been displaced and hundreds of thousands cut off from humanitarian access. Already an estimated 3 million IDPs, drought-affected and vulnerable people in different parts of the country depend on food assistance. In addition, the current situation coincides with the planting season for cereal crops and is expected to adversely impact on food production.
An Emergency Operation was jointly approved in April 2002 by FAO and WFP for food assistance for 2.9 million people, worth US$132.8 million for a period of 12 months (1 April 2002 to 31 March 2003).