Livestock losses with the late start of the rainy season undermine pastoral livelihoods

• Poor agropastoral households in central and northern areas of the country are unable to meet their food needs without resorting to atypical coping strategies and cutting the size and/or number of their daily meals. These households will face Crisis (IPC Phase 3) food insecurity through September 2015.

• The sharp deterioration in pastoral conditions in the groundnut basin and southeastern areas of the country, due to the shortage of pasture and scarcity of watering holes, is heightening the severity of the lean season for pastoral populations. In particular, livestock are in poor physical condition, which is driving a higher than usual livestock mortality risk and resulting in reduced pastoral incomes, limiting market access for affected households.

• Thus far, cumulative rainfall totals have been below average, delaying the start-up of farming activities in certain areas. While rainfall levels are expected to increase during the next couple of weeks, certain seasonal forecasts show an increased probability of below-average rainfall between July and September. Thus, rainfall levels and agricultural conditions need to be closely monitored.

Cumulative rainfall totals from May 1st through June 23rd were below-average to well-below-average, delaying the start-of-season in certain areas, particularly in the southern and western reaches of the country (Figures 1 and 2). This light rainfall is limiting farming activities to mainly field clean-up and fertilizer transportation, generating below-average levels of household income for this time of year. Ongoing harvests of off-season rice crops in the Senegal River Valley in the northern part of the country are similar to average. In addition to improving food availability in that area, this rice production is helping households partially meet their needs as the new growing season gets underway.

The unusual deterioration in pastoral conditions in livestock holding areas in the groundnut basin and the Southeast is dangerously weakening the physical condition of livestock and increasing the livestock mortality risk in these areas. According to media reports, there have been atypically large numbers of animal deaths in the Linguéré area, for example, due to the shortage of pasture and water. Moreover, if the start of the rainy season in these areas is delayed, as predicted by the PRESAO forecast, there will be increasingly heavy losses of livestock. Even with the start-up in livestock holding areas in the groundnut basin and the north of distributions of 14,000 metric tons of animal feed at government-subsidized prices (50 percent below market prices), the risk of losses will undermine household livelihoods and, thus, the coping capacity of poor households without the means with which to maintain their small livestock herds. In addition, these poor conditions have caused certain herds that migrated to seasonal grazing lands in Mali to delay their return, depriving household members remaining behind in Senegal of food and income from milk and dairy production.

In general, there are still adequate market supplies of local cereals across the country as certain households are selling additional stocks in major production areas to cover Ramadan-related expenses. This in turn has caused prices to inch downwards. Millet prices, for example, are slightly below levels for last month and the five-year average on all markets monitored by Fews Net with the exception of Tambacounda, where they are up by two percent. Imported rice supplies are average to above average, depending on the market in question. As a result, prices for regular broken rice are generally stable compared to last month, except in Ziguinchor, where they are up slightly, by seven percent. Similarly, rice prices are approximately ten percent and two percent below-average, respectively, in Dakar and Saint Louis and are four percent above-average in Ziguinchor. However, even with these favorable price levels, poor households with below-average incomes are currently facing reduced market access.

With the shortfalls in household incomes, as well as below-average crop and animal production during 2014/15, the lean season has been longer than usual, beginning in May instead of June, for poor households in both pastoral and agricultural areas in the central and northern reaches of the country. Households in turn are reducing their food and nonfood expenditures and are ramping up their use of coping strategies, such as atypically high levels of wage labor and migration. In addition, cutbacks in the number and size of meals are maintaining high malnutrition rates in these areas, which were already at critical levels in 2014 based on WHO (World Health Organization) standards. While scheduled distributions of food and farm inputs by the government to poor households in affected areas beginning this month should help reduce the number of people facing food consumption deficits and enable them to start the new growing season, poor pastoral and agropastoral households in the central and northern reaches of the country will still face Crisis (IPC Phase 3) food insecurity between June and September, due to the drivers described above. By September, their earlier than usual recourse to what is expected to be a smaller than usual harvest of green crops with the delay in the start of the rainy season will help ease the severity of the prolonged lean season, causing food security outcomes for poor households to improve to Stressed (IPC Phase 2) levels.