Stress in some areas due to cropping and pasture deficits

Livelihood Zone 9, Rainfed cultivation

This Livelihood Zone includes the northern part of Sélibaby department and all of Ould Yengé department, where approximately 75 percent of the local population consists of poor farmers with only one harvest of rainfed crops per year, which provides 35 percent of their annual food supply and whose sale generates 20 percent of their annual income. Thus, they are extremely vulnerable to rainfall shocks affecting their farming activities. Their main livelihood and coping strategy is short-term seasonal labor migration, which furnishes approximately 20 percent of their income and is an important source of access to foodstuffs sold commercially, since they purchase 38 percent of their food supplies on the market.

Current situation

• The poor distribution of rainfall during the rainy season created large shortfalls in rainfed crop production in this Livelihood Zone. Poor households, which normally have large enough stocks of rainfed crops to meet their food needs through March/April, had already depleted their food stocks by November.
• As usual, current pastoral conditions in most of this rainfed farming area are still satisfactory. However, the dwindling supply of surface water has led to herders abandoning some areas (northern Guidimakha) and created budding overgrazing problems in the central reaches of the Livelihood Zone, which have already been deserted by large pastoralists headed south and into Mali.
• Good market supplies of imported foodstuffs are currently ensuring adequate food availability. In fact, there is an unrestricted flow of imports by local traders and of cross-border trade with Mali, and assistance programs in the area such as SAVS and BS programs, out-patient therapeutic feeding centers (CRENAMs), and school meal programs are all running smoothly.
• Food sales by assistance programs at 30 to 40 percent lower prices and Malian cereal exports have more or less stabilized food prices on formal markets. As a result, prices for imported foodstuffs (rice and wheat) are not appreciably higher than at the same time last year. On the contrary, with the influx of Malian crops, there will be a steady seasonal decline in coarse grain prices (by 33 percent in the case of sorghum) in rainfed farming areas between January and March. Prices for these crops are still well above the average for the last four years (by between four and 12 percent). Most difficulties with access to these crops stem from the lower seasonal incomes of poor households.
• Seasonal income (between January and March), generated largely by farm labor in Mali and odd jobs in urban areas, is declining. Stock sales are limiting the need for labor in farming-related activities (such as threshing and winnowing), while the climate of insecurity in Mali has limited the number of seasonal migrant workers (which has merely doubled, when it might have tripled or quadrupled), most of whom are concentrated in areas of Mali close to the Mauritanian border. In addition, the labor surplus in urban areas is making it more difficult to find work or to generate income in an already saturated informal sector. Thus, contrary to our previous assumptions, these households will fail to generate near-average levels of seasonal income.
• Livestock prices are rising in line with seasonal trends. This year, however, prices are unusually high, fueled by demand from Malian farmers purchasing animals for the building of herds. However, only middle-income and better-off households are profiting from these higher prices since, in this case, there is little demand for goats, which make up most of the herd in poor households.

Assumptions

The most likely local food security scenario for the period from January through June 2014 described below was established based on the following general assumptions:

• Poor households will continue to be forced to resort to purchasing their food supplies until the next harvest in September.
• Pastoral conditions will not meet the needs of local livestock between April and June. At the very least, there will be average levels of milk production through March, followed by declining rates of production between April and June.
• Trends in pastoral conditions will also affect the physical condition of livestock, driving down prices between April and June in rural areas, where poor households not yet reaping the benefits of seasonal labor migration will be forced to sell their animals in order to buy food.
• Short-term seasonal labor migration beginning in January, three months earlier than usual, has not yet had any major income effects other than reducing the amount of food purchases in the household. This will continue to be the case through March, which is expected to cut annual migration wages between April and June approximately in half.
• The seasonal decline in wheat prices will make this substitute food affordable for poor households. However, the smooth flow of cross-border trade (with Mali) will ensure the availability of sorghum, limiting any recourse to wheat.
• There will be regular market supplies of the most consumed imported staple foods in this area (sorghum, maize, rice, wheat, sugar, tea, and oil). The recent hike in fuel prices is not expected to trigger any sharp rises in the prices of imported foods. There will be a longer than usual period of market dependence, but poor households will be able to continue to take advantage of the low prices of BS and SAVS programs.
• Incomes will continue to be well below-average, with most Mauritanians working outside the country concentrated in areas close to home for fear of reprisals, creating a labor surplus in these areas expected to translate into wage cuts and lower overall incomes.
• According to all indications, social assistance programs should function normally.

Most likely food security outcomes

Poor households will continue to face Stressed (IPC Phase 2) acute food insecurity outcomes between January and March. Without sufficient cereal production to meet their food needs, they will be forced to resort to market purchase four months earlier than usual, hampered by sharply reduced incomes. The deterioration in pastoral conditions will limit their access to milk and reduce the market value of their animals (due to their poor physical condition). However, the low food prices in BS and SAVS programs should help contain the erosion in their purchasing power. These conditions will produce Crisis levels of food insecurity (Phase 3, IPC 2.0) between April and June in Ould Yengé department, where migrant remittances (the main source of seasonal income) are not expected to suffice to offset shortfalls in production and other income and give poor households regular, adequate access to commercially marketed foodstuffs.

Western reaches of agropastoral Livelihood Zone 7

This Livelihood Zone includes northern and eastern Gorgol, northern Brakna and western Assaba. Approximately 60 percent of the population consists of poor farming-oriented agropastoral households currently suffering the effects of large shortfalls in rainfed crop production. On average, these crops meet 30 percent of their food needs and their sale accounts for 20 percent of their income. They purchase 35 percent of their food supplies on the market between March and July, mostly with cash income from short-term seasonal labor migration (which accounts for 40 percent of their annual income) and through in-kind loans (20 percent) from local traders, which are repaid in kind at harvest time when terms are most advantageous.

Current situation

• After the poor production from rainfed crops, the failure of food-recession crops (in lowland and dam areas) due largely to infestations of stalk borers has left poor households with little food stocks, which normally last them through April/May. With the severe damage to flood-recession crops from stalk borers, current production forecasts put output at less than a quarter of the average in spite of the 20 to 25 percent larger than average areas planted in these crops at the beginning of the season. Harvests, which were not even scheduled to get underway until the end of January, are already over in certain areas, since only crops planted in October in highland areas were able reach maturity before being attacked by stalk borers. As a result, poor households which, on average, produce approximately 1.6 to two metric tons of crops, harvested a mere 80 to 100 kg of crops this year at best, with more than three quarters of their fields yielding no crops whatsoever.
• Earnings from farm labor between October and November were 30 to 40 percent larger than average with the high demand for farm labor for the rapid planting of large flood-irrigated areas, but there will be virtually no income from harvesting, transportation, and crop processing activities between February and March (which generate over 60 percent of household income from farm labor).
• Young people had left the area for neighboring cities (Kaédi and M’Bout), Nouakchott, Nouadhibou and Zouerate, or Senegal by as early as December to look for seasonal work. However, their families have not yet received any remittances of either food or cash.
• Most daily income is generated by sales of hay. The volume of sales is still well above-average in the central and eastern reaches of agropastoral Livelihood Zone 7, where a cartload of straw sells for between 4500 and 6000 MRO depending on its size.
• Sales of wood are severely limited by contolled surveillance and the fear of punishment if caught by Ministry of Environment agents. There has been little movement in the price of a sack of charcoal, which has gone from 1400 MRO in 2013 to only 1500 MRO, though the supply charcoal for sale is already down by more than 75 percent.
• With the poor harvests of flood-recession crops, sorghum prices are at a record seasonal high (900 MRO/moud, or approximately 225 MRO/kg) in agropastoral areas of Monguel and northeastern Brakna. The unit price of sorghum ranged from 350 to 400 MRO/moud at the same time last year, falling as low as 300 MRO at harvest time (in early February). Current prices in the River Valley (on the Boghé market) and in the western reaches of the agropastoral Livelihood Zone (on the Magta Lahjar market) are four to 12 percent above the five-year average.
• The average harvests of lowland maize crops in M’Bout department have tempered rises in the unit price of sorghum in this area, which fluctuates between 600 and 700 MRO. In fact, there is little demand for sorghum, since poor households are large consumers of maize. Farmers selling their sorghum crops are forced to accept the low prices imposed by cereal traders, though everyone is expecting a steep rise in sorghum prices once supplies of maize crops are depleted in February.
• The cowpea harvest, which is still in progress, is also poor. In fact, at only approximately 30 percent of the the 2013 harvest and half the average, it is the smallest harvest in five years. Cowpeas are a substitute for meat in the diets of poor households in this agropastoral area, as well as an important source of income. Unit prices per moud are already as high as 2000 MRO, compared with only 600 MRO at the same time last year, which was a bumper year.
• Pastoral conditions in the northwestern reaches of this agropastoral area are severely degraded due to the poor distribution of rainfall (in northern and northeastern Brakna and in Monguel department in Gorgol). As a result, the physical condition of local animals is deteriorating. Conditions in the rest of this area (extending from M’Bout department in Gorgol to Assaba and Guidimakha) are still generally satisfactory, where stocking rates in rangeland areas are average to low with the departure of the transhumant herds of large pastoralists for seasonal grazing lands in southern Guidimakha and Mali. With the damage to pasturelands in the Valley from transhumant herds out of Senegal, large pastoralists in this part of the area were also forced to push up their departure for seasonal grazing lands in Gorgol. As a result, there is already heavy pressure on pastures in the southern reaches of this agropastoral zone between Wadjio (some twenty or so kilometers east of Kaédi) and the northern reaches of Maghama department. The areas most affected by the presence of transhumant herds at this stage in the season are the southwestern reaches of this agropastoral area and the River Valley.
• Prices for livestock will continue to rise through the end of March, but seasonal drops in prices between April and June will put them below their current level (by between 9.45 and 11.17 percent based on figures for 2010 and 2013, respectively). This is supported by the pastoral conditions in this agropastoral area, which are similar to conditions in 2010.
• Many families are still buying their food supplies from BS and SAVS programs, though certain households short on cash admit having already gone back to taking loans from local traders against future remittances or upcoming harvests for lack of the money with which to pay for their purchases until June (there are no credit sales by the BS program).

Assumptions

The most likely local food security scenario for the period from January through June 2014 described below was established based on the following general assumptions:

• With the failure of flood-recession crops, household cereal stocks will last only two months, compared with an average of four to five months, which would take them into April. Without these crops from on-farm production, poor households will continue to rely on market purchasing to meet their food needs. They will resort to purchasing food on the market by February, two to three months sooner than usual.
• Pastoral conditions, which had limited herd movements through January, are deteriorating under pressure from transhumant herds from Senegal and the western part of the country. With the departure of transhumant herds for seasonal grazing lands, as usual, there will be no milk production from cattle and sheep. Only households with goats and camels will have a supply of milk.
• An influx of transhumant herds from northern pasture-short areas where light cold-season rains precluded sufficient pasture production to keep livestock herds from leaving is now extremely likely. The poor pastoral conditions in this area will reduce seasonal demand for pastoral labor between January and June. Transhumant herds will not remain long in this area and, thus, will not require the hiring of local labor.
• The current large sales of straw are not expected to continue beyond the end of February with the influx of transhumant herds from western Mauritania and Senegal. In time, straw supplies in near-by farming areas will be depleted, making it necessary to travel longer distances.  The end result will be a below-average volume of sales.
• Sales of wood and charcoal generally stretch from March to June. There will be much fewer sales of wood and charcoal than usual with the limited numbers of wooded areas and the surveillance by Environmental Ministry agents
• Short-term seasonal labor migration will begin three months early, but its spin-off effects will be weaker than usual due to the difficulty of finding work in urban areas of the country and Mali.
• Commercial imports and humanitarian assistance and the smooth flow of cross-border trade will ensure regular, adequate market supplies of imported foodstuffs.
• The 10 percent hike in fuel prices in October in line with seasonal price trends for the past three years will trigger a proportional rise in prices for foodstuffs shipped to and sold on domestic markets by January, as well as in transportation costs for both passengers and freight.
• Coarse grain prices (prices for sorghum, millet, and maize) will remain slightly elevated between January and March. However, any rises in prices will be in line with normal seasonal trends and will be tempered by Malian exports and by good wheat availability, which is the main substitute cereal for poor households. The escalation in prices will speed up between April and June but will stay in line with average price trends, with markets expected to continue to receive shipments of imported cereal from Mali.
• Prices for wheat and rice will also steadily climb between April and June, by close to 11.9 percent in the case of wheat and 12.9 percent in the case of imported rice. In fact, the increasingly limited availability of local rice (with harvests of “winter” rice crops over since November/early December and harvests of hot off-season rice crops not scheduled to begin until June) will heighten demand for imported rice. In addition to the growing demand for wheat from poor households, for which it is the main substitute cereal of choice, there will also be a demand for wheat from mainly urban pastoralists, which could be further heightened by demand from rural pastoralists as the lean season continues in pastoral areas.
• Terms of trade will stay in favor of pastoralists, but will be gradually eroded by the normal decline in the prices of livestock with the deterioration in their physical condition and the heavy seasonal sales in rural areas for the purchasing of animal feed. However, this mostly involves medium and large-scale pastoralists and should not significantly affect household income, with these households generally making enough sales to meet family needs for the duration of their period of transhumance. Poor households with only a few head of stock are rarely involved in these seasonal migratory movements.

Most likely food security outcomes

The failure of flood-recession crops will reduce the food stocks of poor households, who will be forced to rely on market purchasing to meet their food needs. The lower prices of livestock and limited flow of other income between January and March will make it difficult for them to meet their food needs without neglecting their nonfood needs, creating Stressed levels of acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 2) among poor households. This will continue to be the case through the end of June since, even with the help of expected migrant labor remittances between April and June, the only way to maintain regular, adequate food access through SAVS and BS programs will be to increase their sales of livestock, which will stress their main livelihood.