Assumptions for quarterly food security analysis

Afin de fournir les perspectives de sécurité alimentaire, FEWS NET prépare divers scénarios. La méthodologie permet à l’analyste de préparer une série d’hypothèses informées sur le futur et de comparer les effets qu’elles pourraient avoir. Le rapport qui suit, préparé par les analystes de FEWS NET en se basant sur les faits actuels, souligne les hypothèses au niveau de la région. Il présente aussi des hypothèses au niveau des pays, qui sont probablement plus détaillées. Prises ensemble, hypothèses régionales et nationales constituent la base de l’analyse intégrée présentée dans les Perspectives de la sécurité alimentaire qui sont mises à jour par FEWS NET. Pour en savoir plus sur le travail, clique ici.

Les rapports sur les perspectives de la sécurité alimentaire de FEWS NET pour avril à septembre 2014 au Sahel et en Afrique de l’Ouest sont basés sur les hypothèses régionales suivantes établies en début d’avril 2014 :

• Agroclimatology: Forecasts for the rainy season show no major rainfall anomalies (ECMWF, IRI). Thus, the rainy season is expected to start normally, with the first rains falling in April/May in the Sudano-Guinean zone and in June in the Sudano-Sahelian zone. Cumulative rainfall totals and distribution for the 2014 rainy season will also normal, except for Mali, Senegal, and Mauritania where rainfall could be below average.
• Desert locusts: Thus far, any increases in desert locust activity have been small in scale and limited to northwestern and northern Mauritania and the Ténéré and southeastern Aïr mountain areas of Niger, where treatment programs have been conducted (FAO). As a result, no major upsurges in desert locust activity are expected in this region between now and September.
• Outlook for off-season harvests: March marked the end of the cool season across the Sahel. Based on water availability, dry-season crop production will be above average throughout the region, with market garden crop harvests completed on-time in March/April. There will also be an average to above-average stream of food and income from market garden and flood recession crops and related labor, ending, as usual, in April. Harvests of dry-season rice in irrigation schemes along the Niger River will take place normally in June-July and will be at least average.
• Outlook for farm labor: The 2014-15 growing season will start normally, with land preparation and field cleanup activities across the region beginning simultaneously between May and July, creating a high seasonal demand for labor. Wage rates will be up from last year when there was a comparatively larger supply of labor with both the rainy season and the growing season getting off to a rough start.
• Transhumance and livestock body conditions: Trends in the physical condition of livestock and milk availability will follow their normal pattern, with a seasonal deterioration in livestock body conditions beginning in April and continuing through the end of June, particularly in localized pockets of pasture deficits in Senegal, Mauritania, Chad, Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso. As usual, return transhumant migration to northern areas will begin in May, as the vegetation front advances northwards, spurred by the normal start of the rainy season. Thus, there will be a steady improvement in livestock and milk production conditions as of June.

General trends

• Supply:  With regional 2013/14 crop production surpassing the five-year average by 11 percent, as confirmed by CILSS in March, there will be adequate levels of coarse grains available to ensure normal market supply. More specifically, production levels increased for all types of grains except millet, whose production was down 20 percent due, primarily, to a structural shift over the past few years away from millet and to other crops in Nigeria, which is the region’s top crop-producing country. In addition, stable international rice market prices will maintain a normal volume of imports, which will help ensure a regular market supply of rice, particularly in urban areas.
• Demand: There will be a steady increase in household demand on local markets beginning in April and peaking, as usual, in July-August. This year’s institutional procurements began later than usual and are still currently in progress in Mali, Niger, and Chad. While procurement levels are normal, the late start of this year’s procurements will prolong institutional demand, which normally ends by April/May, into June. However, good levels of trader inventories will limit the effect of these procurements on rising prices.
• Livestock markets: Livestock prices will decline between April and June in line with the seasonal deterioration in animal grazing conditions and water availability. They will then begin to rebound by the end of June, driven up by 1) the tightening of livestock market supplies as animals return to pastoral areas, 2) improving livestock body conditions with new vegetative growth spurred by the first rains in June across the Sahel, and 3) growing demand for livestock during Ramadan in July. Prices will stay above their seasonal averages throughout this period, sustained by strong urban demand and demand in the coastal states.

Breakdown by Basin

Eastern Basin (Niger, Nigeria, Benin, and Chad)

• Grain trade: As usual, trade between Niger, Nigeria, and Benin will begin to pick up in April to ensure a regular flow of supplies to markets in deficit areas of Niger. Trade flows will be normal, driven by favorable price differentials that incentivize regular grain transfers from surplus to deficit areas. However, there will be an uncharacteristic decline in trade between Chad and the CAR due to the conflict in the CAR and the security problems in areas along the border between the two countries.
• Grain prices: Production was 24 percent below average in this basin and the interplay of a just barely average grain supply from carry-over stocks and above-average demand will trigger unusually steep seasonal millet price increases beginning in April. Millet prices will remain well above the five-year average (by more than 20 percent) in the coming months. The approach of Ramadan (in July) and the associated heightened demand for millet will drive prices even higher during this time period to more than 30 percent above average. The earlier than usual depletion of household grain stocks in parts of Chad and Niger that reported production deficits will further steepen price increases in these areas. After peaking in July at the end of Ramadan, prices could begin to decline slowly but will remain elevated (more than 20 percent above-average) as the lean season continues into August.
• Livestock trade: There will be steady trade flows of livestock between Nigeria and Niger and with other countries, such as Mali and Burkina Faso, the source of supply for southwestern Nigeria via Niger and Benin. However, trade flows to Chad and the Diffa region of Niger will be below average due to the Boko Haram conflict in northeastern Nigeria and fighting in CAR.

Central Basin (Burkina Faso and Mali)

• Grain supply and demand: Trader inventories, particularly of maize, are at above-average levels due to the good harvests in Burkina Faso and Côte d’Ivoire. However, as of May, the earlier than usual depletion of the food stocks of households who experienced cereal production deficits will fuel market demand, particularly in central and western Mali hard hit by last year’s poor harvests. Based on different government procurement notices, institutional demand will be normal.  
• Grain trade: Cereal trade flows between Burkina Faso and Niger will be above average to supply deficit areas of western Niger with grain and to meet institutional procurement needs. This is due to more favorable price differentials in Burkina Faso compared with prices in Nigeria, particularly in the case of maize, whose current prices in Burkina Faso are near the five-year average.  
• Grain prices: Despite larger trade flows to Niger, maize prices will increase seasonally but will continue to hover near the average due to good levels of trader inventories. Millet prices will be slightly above the five-year average due to 1) production levels that were 12 percent below average in this basin, 2) growing market demand fueled by demand from grain-deficit households in Mali, Senegal, Ghana, and Niger where production levels were 22, 25, 24, and 11 percent below average, respectively, and 3) generally heightened demand for millet during the month of Ramadan. Sorghum prices will follow this same trend due to a substitution effect as households replace millet by sorghum in the face of millet production levels that were nine percent below-average in the central basin and 11 percent below-average in the western basin, whose main source of supply is the central basin.

Western Basin (Senegal, Mali, and Mauritania)

• Grain trade: The volume of grain exports by Mali to deficit areas of Mauritania will increase but remain below average due to banditry in areas along the border between the two countries. Trade volumes of grain will also be lower than usual between Mauritania and Senegal as a result of production deficits in both countries. However, there will be a normal flow of millet, sorghum, and maize from Mali to Senegal. Millet trade flows could increase with the approach of Ramadan, followed by a slowdown in trade at the end of the month-long observance period, in line with normal seasonal trends.
• Grain prices: Current international market prices for imported grain (rice and wheat) will remain stable through September 2014. Coarse grain prices are expected to rise as a result of the production deficits in Senegal and Mali, which is the main source of supply for the western basin and where production levels were 20 percent and four percent below-average, respectively.

Coastal States (Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, and Guinea Conakry)

• Livestock trade: As usual, livestock trade flows from the central basin (Burkina Faso and Mali) to Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire will increase with the approach of Ramadan. However, trade flows could be below average to Ghana due to the detrimental effects of fluctuations in the exchange rate for the Cedi against the CFA franc, which are uncharacteristically driving up the price of livestock from the CFA zone in Ghana.
• Grain prices: Good grain production levels in most of the coastal states and stable international market prices of rice and wheat will help keep rising prices at average levels. 

• Central African Republic (CAR) and northeastern Nigeria: The continuing conflicts in these areas will create increasingly large displaced populations in Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon.

• Migration and remittances: As usual, internal and intra-regional migration flows will end by May/June. In general, there will be average levels of migrant remittances between April and September.
• Nutrition: In general, there will be a seasonal rise in global acute malnutrition rates starting in March in most areas of the Sahel (Niger, Mali, Mauritania, Chad, and Burkina Faso) with high levels of GAM. However, malnutrition rates across the region will be in line with seasonal averages, except for in the Sahelian zone of Chad and eastern and western Niger, where high grain prices and the depletion of grain stocks could drive rates above average. Without proper targeted nutrition programs, the nutritional situation could become critical during the lean season (June and September).