Eroding food security in Somaliland

AllAfrica.com via IRIN: Low agricultural production, caused by poor rainfall last year in Somalia's self-declared republic of Somaliland, has put at least half of its three million people at risk of food insecurity, agricultural officials warn. "We are very worried that the situation could get worse because last year the crop production in the western regions of Somaliland - particularly Awdal, Gabiley and Hargeisa - decreased so much compared to 2008," Abdulkadir Jibril Tukale, director-general of the Ministry of Agriculture, said.

For example, Tukale said, Gabiley was the only region expected to record over 90 percent crop production, "which will provide some stocks for only the Hargeisa region, but Togdher and Awdal regions will depend upon food aid and loans".

Mohamed Muse Awale, chairman of the National Environment Research and Disaster Preparedness Agency (NERAD), noted that in November 2009, government and NGOs estimated that the livelihood crisis caused by rain failure had affected at least 40 percent of the population; that figure, he said, had since risen to 50-60 percent.

District officials in Allaybaday, in the Midwestern Gabiley region, have expressed concern about the livelihood crisis following the recent rain failure in the Deyr and Gu seasons. Hassan Abdi Ali, the mayor, said some 12,000 families in the district had been affected, many of them losing livestock….

A landscape in Somaliland, via Abdullah Geelah, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license