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A deterioration in food access in some communes in the Sahel region

  • Key Message Update
  • Burkina Faso
  • September 2021
A deterioration in food access in some communes in the Sahel region

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  • Key Messages
  • Key Messages
    • The seasonal forecast update (NOAA) predicts a rapid descent of the intertropical front, leading to an early to normal end of the season over the Sahel. In northern provinces (Loroum, Bam, Soum, and Oudalan), where the season is marked by dry periods between July and August, rainfall deficits have negatively affected crop yields, pasture production, and water reservoir levels. According to key informants, these areas will have significant drops in agricultural production as areas planted declined by 30 to 50 percent due to insecurity. Market gardening activities between November and April will also likely be limited, and the pastoral lean season will start early in February.

    • Attacks by terrorist groups against security forces and civilians persist almost daily, particularly in the Sahel, North, and East regions. In addition to the increase in displaced people (1.42 million at the end of August), these incidents force people to abandon their fields.

    • At the end of the lean season, food availability is lower than usual in the markets. While green harvests (in southern and western production areas) and food assistance (in areas most affected by insecurity) contribute to reducing the pressure of household demand on the markets, staple food prices remain above the five-year average overall: 29 percent for maize, 9 percent for sorghum and 7 percent for millet. In urban areas, edible oil costs remains 51 percent above the average. The cost of meat and fish each show increases of 20 percent. In some inaccessible municipalities with large IDP populations, atypical price increases are observed. In Kelbo municipality, annual price variations reach 90 and 80 percent for millet and sorghum, respectively. 

    • Poor households and IDPs and host areas of high IDP presence continue to face Crisis (IPC Phase 3) acute food insecurity. According to the results of the food security monitoring for August (SP/CONASUR), food access strategies, particularly among IDPs, relate, among other things, to reducing the quantities of daily rations (94 percent of IDPs), the use of substitution foods (35 percent of IDPs) and borrowing and begging (22 percent of IDPs). In areas inaccessible to assistance (communes of Mansila, Markoye, Tin-Akoff, Déou, Oursi, Arbinda, and Kelbo), with the erosion of household assets, the non-functioning of basic services, the marginal harvests expected at the end of September, and the ongoing forced migration of populations, ), it is likely that there are populations in Emergency (IPC Phase 4).

    This Key Message Update provides a high-level analysis of current acute food insecurity conditions and any changes to FEWS NET's latest projection of acute food insecurity outcomes in the specified geography. Learn more here.

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