FAO/GIEWS: Africa Report - March 1998:

BURUNDI

CURRENT SITUATION

An FAO/WFP Crop and Food Supply Assessment Mission visited Burundi from 2 to 12 February 1998 to evaluate 1998 first season (1998A) production observed a clear improvement in security conditions, which allowed a part of the population in regroupment and displaced camps to return to their farms during the second half of 1997. This population movement, together with that of returnees from outside the country, led to an increase in planted areas in 1998A season.

The first season of 1998 started under adverse weather conditions, marked by a prolonged dry spell. The rains arrived a month late in most of the country (in mid-October) and were then unusually heavy, causing flooding in marshlands, and occasioning heavy parasite infestation on some of this season’s crops, thus reducing overall yields. The mission forecasts the 1998A season overall food production at 1 141 961 tonnes, a decline of 2 percent on the already low 1997A season production. Pulses and cereals experienced the heaviest falls (16 and 13 percent respectively). In comparison with the average of the season A food production between 1988 and 1993, the 1998 first season is 20 percent lower.

Considering on the one hand an increase in planted areas, and on the other a probable decline in yields as a result of shortages of fertilizer and improved seed, production of the 1998B season, now being planted, is forecast to remain at last year’s level. By contrast, if weather conditions are normal, season C production should show a marked rise against the very low 1997 level, which was affected by flooding at harvest time. On this basis, the mission provisionally projected total food production for 1998 at 3.587 million tonnes, as against the revised 1997 estimate of 3.183 million tonnes, or an increase of 13 percent. However, at this level production is still 9 percent below the 1988-1993 average.

Food import requirements in 1998 are estimated at 139 000 tonnes in cereal equivalent, whereas commercial imports are expected at 54 000 tonnes. This will leave a deficit of 85 000 tonnes of cereals and pulses. Emergency food aid requirements for the most severely affected sectors of the population in 1998 are estimated at some 60 000 tonnes of cereals and pulses. The uncovered deficit is therefore 25 000 tonnes.

The export of unknown quantities of foodstuffs to neighbouring countries (especially Rwanda), as well as the destruction of a large part of 1997C season crops by floods, have led to a serious pressure on food availability. Food prices rose on the country’s various markets in the second half of 1997 and up to the end of January 1998, when they started to fall with the start of the bean harvest. However, they remain higher than in the same period last year due to this season’s reduced output. The high level of prices will further restrict access to food for large sections of the population with insufficient resources, aggravating the nutritional and health status in forthcoming months.