Hunger in southern Africa Can famine be averted?
If food aid is slow or obstructed, there will be starvation
AFRICA'S hunger is growing, dangerously. However quickly donors respond to the disastrous food shortage in southern Africa, millions more people will need aid over the next nine months.
Stocks from April's awful harvest are nearly exhausted. The World Food Programme (WFP) says that 7m people already need help, and that the numbers will double before Christmas. In the worst-affected countries, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi, maize harvests were miserable, but cassava (木薯）and potatoes partly filled the gap. Now these are almost gone, too. Within months, say aid agencies, chronic （慢性的, 延續(xù)很長(zhǎng)的）hunger could give way to starvation in the most remote areas. If donors are slow or obstructed, a vaster famine looms（迫近）.
Rural people are vulnerable even in normal times. Malawi's woes （悲哀）are typical: it has a shrinking economy and endemic poverty; half its children are chronically malnourished. An acute land shortage has led to over-use, soil degradation （退化）and small yields. Imported fertiliser could make even tiny plots productive, but most small farmers cannot afford to buy it, and donors are sending less of it free. An internal report written in July by Britain's Department for International Development admits that its own severe cut in “free inputs” for Malawi's farmers in 2000 and 2001 was a “more important factor” leading to hunger than two years of bad weather.
The meagre （貧乏的；不足的）harvests that resulted meant that the vulnerable have become desperate. In Ositeni, a village in central Malawi, a few withered maize stalks and yellowing cassava plants poke up from the dusty soil. The village has no irrigation, no grain silos（筒倉, 地窖 ）, and no tomatoes or cash crops （商品作物）to trade for nsima, the country's maize staple. In other years, able adults would find casual work on neighbours' fields, in exchange for food. Now there are no jobs.
Last week, the first sacks of charitable corn were unloaded for Ositeni's 13 most needy families. But stockpiles are needed before November's rains make the bare-earth roads impassably muddy. The WFP has appealed for $507m for southern Africa, but has so far raised less than a quarter of that. Last week, relief groups and the Red Cross launched their own campaigns, and a few million dollars have rolled in. It is already getting late, says Brendan Paddy of Save the Children: “During the region's 1991-92 shortage, food was already stockpiled in forward positions by now. We are three or four months behind.” Aid workers fear that donors will not respond until they see skeletal people on television.
If food aid is slow or obstructed, there will be starvation
AFRICA'S hunger is growing, dangerously. However quickly donors respond to the disastrous food shortage in southern Africa, millions more people will need aid over the next nine months.
Stocks from April's awful harvest are nearly exhausted. The World Food Programme (WFP) says that 7m people already need help, and that the numbers will double before Christmas. In the worst-affected countries, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi, maize harvests were miserable, but cassava (木薯）and potatoes partly filled the gap. Now these are almost gone, too. Within months, say aid agencies, chronic （慢性的, 延續(xù)很長(zhǎng)的）hunger could give way to starvation in the most remote areas. If donors are slow or obstructed, a vaster famine looms（迫近）.
Rural people are vulnerable even in normal times. Malawi's woes （悲哀）are typical: it has a shrinking economy and endemic poverty; half its children are chronically malnourished. An acute land shortage has led to over-use, soil degradation （退化）and small yields. Imported fertiliser could make even tiny plots productive, but most small farmers cannot afford to buy it, and donors are sending less of it free. An internal report written in July by Britain's Department for International Development admits that its own severe cut in “free inputs” for Malawi's farmers in 2000 and 2001 was a “more important factor” leading to hunger than two years of bad weather.
The meagre （貧乏的；不足的）harvests that resulted meant that the vulnerable have become desperate. In Ositeni, a village in central Malawi, a few withered maize stalks and yellowing cassava plants poke up from the dusty soil. The village has no irrigation, no grain silos（筒倉, 地窖 ）, and no tomatoes or cash crops （商品作物）to trade for nsima, the country's maize staple. In other years, able adults would find casual work on neighbours' fields, in exchange for food. Now there are no jobs.
Last week, the first sacks of charitable corn were unloaded for Ositeni's 13 most needy families. But stockpiles are needed before November's rains make the bare-earth roads impassably muddy. The WFP has appealed for $507m for southern Africa, but has so far raised less than a quarter of that. Last week, relief groups and the Red Cross launched their own campaigns, and a few million dollars have rolled in. It is already getting late, says Brendan Paddy of Save the Children: “During the region's 1991-92 shortage, food was already stockpiled in forward positions by now. We are three or four months behind.” Aid workers fear that donors will not respond until they see skeletal people on television.