What's New

The FAO Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS) has released updated country briefs for Ethiopia and Tanzania. These briefs provide up-to-date food security and agricultural information, as well as forecasts for cereal imports and production and other food security-related indicators.

The latest series of updated country alerts from FEWS Net provides food security and food production updates for several countries in Africa south of the Sahara.

This blog originally appeared in the AGRODEP Bulletin .

By Antoine Bouët , Senior Research Fellow, IFPRI

Smallholder farmers play a crucial role in global food security. However, smallholders also often do not meet their production potential, engaging in subsistence-level agriculture instead of producing excess outputs to then sell at market. Such farmers frequently do not have access to the capital they need to reach this higher level of production, nor are they trained in the skills required to successfully manage what is in effect a small business.

The Horn of Africa will continue to face a significant food security crisis into early 2018, according to a new alert released by FEWS Net. Poor rains in March-June – the second consecutive below-average season – have exacerbated already reduced livestock and agricultural conditions in many areas of the region. In some areas, particularly Ethiopia and Somalia, rainfall totals from June 2016 to May 2017 were the lowest or second-lowest seen in over three decades.

Despite improved rains at the end of April and beginning of May, Ethiopia is still expected to see worsening food security outcomes, according to a new alert released by FEWS Net.