COLOMBIA (18 September)
Normal to abundant rains have benefited the 2003/04 first-season cereal crops. The harvest is well advanced, while land is being prepared in some areas for planting the second-season crops. Maize output in 2003 is tentatively forecast at 1.2 million tonnes, which compares to an average of 1 million tonnes of the past five years. An average sorghum output of some 230 000 tonnes is anticipated. Production of paddy, an important food staple in the population’s diet, is provisionally estimated at 2.5 million tonnes this year, some 13 per cent higher than the previous five-year average.
Wheat imports in marketing year 2003 (January/December) are provisionally estimated at about 1.2 million tonnes. Maize imports in 2003 (January/December) should be about 2.1 million tonnes.
Food assistance from the international community continues in various parts of the country for internally displaced populations, victims of the civil strife that has affected the country for so long now.