Joint FAO/WFP Informal Briefing on Food Security
On 7 September, FAO and WFP organised a joint briefing on the agriculture and food security situation in flood-affected areas of Pakistan. The climate-induced disaster struck rural communities amid growing economic and food security challenges, compounding their vulnerabilities and exhausting their resilience.
Severe monsoon weather conditions since mid‑June 2022 have disrupted the lives and livelihoods of over 33 million people in Pakistan, mainly located in rural areas. Rural communities, who represent 80 percent of the poorest people in Pakistan and depend on agriculture and livestock keeping for their livelihoods, were among the hardest hit by the disaster, especially in Balochistan, Sindh and Punjab provinces.
Over 700 000 livestock have died because of the floods and around 2 million acres of crops/orchards are affected. The extensive flooding has also increased the risk of occurrence of Transboundary Animal Diseases, which besides affecting both animals and humans, significantly impact animal production and ultimately food security and nutrition levels of livestock-based livelihoods. Recent outbreaks of Lumpy Skin Disease were already reported in many districts before the recent floods.
FAO is rapidly scaling up its activities, aiming to assist 763 000 flood-affected people (113 900 households) in Sindh, Balochistan, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from September 2022 to February 2023. Considering that Sindh and Punjab, which have been heavily impacted by flooding, are the food baskets of the country, and with the agricultural winter season (Rabi), which accounts for 57 percent of national cereal production, only a few weeks away (the sowing period goes from mid-October to early/mid-December), supporting the Government with the planning of the winter planting season is crucial. FAO is currently providing livestock vaccination, animal feed, seeds, fertilizers, tools, land reclamation. In the medium and long term, FAO will be providing crop inputs for upcoming planting seasons, livestock feed and rehabilitate irrigation infrastructure, and fodder production.
The briefing ended with an update on the acute food insecurity situation in Somalia, where famine is projected to last through to March 2023 if no immediate funding is released. Approximately 6.7 million people across Somalia are expected to face high levels of acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 3 or above) between October and December 2022. This includes 2.2 million people who are expected to be in Emergency (IPC Phase 4) and at least 300 000 people in Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5). Furthermore, Famine (IPC Phase 5) is projected among rural residents in Baidoa and Burhakaba districts and displaced people in Baidoa town of Bay region in southern Somalia, where malnutrition and mortality levels are already at alarming levels. Humanitarian needs are extremely high due to the impacts of four consecutive seasons of poor rainfall, an anticipated fifth season of below-average rainfall from October to December, and exceptionally high food prices, exacerbated by concurrent conflict/insecurity and disease outbreaks (primarily acute watery diarrhoea/cholera and measles).
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