The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) has warned poor rains and crop infestations in southern Africa are threatening deeper hunger across the region, with millions of people, particularly children, at risk.
“Given that the region has barely emerged from three years of very damaging El Nino-induced drought, this is a particularly cruel blow,” Brian Bogart, WFP’s regional program advisor, said in a statement.
Reuters Newsagency reports high temperatures and low rainfall have hit large swathes of land across the region, from South Africa to Zambia, while an invasive crop-eating Fall Army Worm outbreak has shrunk cereal crop production for 2018, experts said.
WFP said there were fears for another rise in the number of people in the region needing emergency food and nutrition assistance, which had fallen to 26 million people last year from a peak of 40 million people during the 2014-2016 El Nino crisis.
Reuters reports an alert was issued by a regional food and nutrition expert group urging action on the possible impact of a “prolonged dry spell” would have on the agricultural season.
“Moisture deficits, high temperatures and a persistence of Fall Army Worm infestation is likely to result in a below average crop and livestock production,” said the report cited by WFP.
Meanwhile, South Africa’s drought-stricken city of Cape Town has pushed back its estimate for “Day Zero,” when residents will have to start queuing for water, to May 11 from April 16, authorities said, citing a decline in agricultural water usage.
“Capetonians must continue reducing consumption if we are to avoid Day Zero,” Cape Town’s executive deputy major, Alderman Ian Neilson, was quoted as saying.
