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Many areas of East Africa will continue to face high levels of food insecurity through late 2019, according to a new report from FEWS Net . The situation will hit its worst levels at the peak of the pastoral lean season in September and October.

According to a new report from FEWS Net , poor households in several regions of Southern Africa have exhausted their own produced foods earlier than usual in the season due to below-average harvests. The number of households in the region experiencing IPC Crisis (Phase 3) food insecurity is expected to increase with the start of the lean season in September and October.

This piece originally appeared on the A4NH blog.

As crop prices move throughout the year, they influence households’ consumption decisions, farmers’ production decisions, and traders’ marketing decisions. As such, it is important to understand price seasonality in local contexts in order to design appropriate policy interventions. A new working paper and policy note from IFPRI’s Nigeria Strategy Support Program look at such price movements in grain prices in Kebbi state, Nigeria.

In late March, heads of state from 44 African countries met in Kigali, Rwanda to sign the framework agreement forming a new African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) . If the agreement is ratified by all 55 member states of the African Union, the AfCFTA would establish one of the largest free trade areas in the world, covering over 1.2 billion people and $2.5 trillion in GDP.