DEVELOPMENT: Drought Stunts Canadian Farmers’ Grain Donations

By Stephen Leahy Reprint | | Print |

Stephen Leahy

BROOKLIN, Ontario , Jan 15 2003 (IPS) - By the end of this month 9,700 tonnes of wheat donated by Canadian farmers will be on their way to drought-stricken Ethiopia, but drought in the grain-growing regions of the country has flattened donations and driven prices up.

”Grain donations are down about 30 percent,” says Richard Phillips, resource director of the Canadian Foodgrains Bank (CFB), a Christian organisation that collects donations of cash, grain and other agricultural commodities for distribution to the world’s hungry.

The 9,700-tonne shipment, which should arrive for discharge and bagging in Djibouti at the end of February, is enough to help feed over three-quarters of a million people for about a month. ”We had to dip into next year’s reserves to get that much,” says Phillips.

”This is the worst drought to strike Ethiopia in the last decade and the consequences could be disastrous unless governments and other aid agencies quickly respond in a major way,” adds Jim Cornelius, CFB’s executive director.

The group also shipped 7,000 tonnes of flour to North Korea and 15,000 tonnes of maize to drought-affected Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe near the end of 2002. While drought has driven up the need for food aid, it is also hurting donor countries. ”Our cupboard is getting bare,” Cornelius says.

Following two years of very dry conditions, many farmers in Canada’s prairie region who normally donate some of their grain suffered through the worst-ever drought last year.

Wheat and barley production was eight to 10 million tonnes less than normal.. Hay and feed levels were so low that hundreds of thousands of cows and calves were also sent to slaughter prematurely. All together, the drought cost western Canadian farmers more than five billion dollars (3.3 billion U.S. dollars) in lost sales.

And with a snow-less winter in much of the region thus far, this year’s harvest may be poor as well. Canadian climate researchers say droughts are likely to be more frequent and intense in the prairie and plains regions of Canada and southern neighbour the United States because of climate change.

The CFB has been able to partly counter the drop in grain donations from farmers by increasing cash donations from people in cities. Those donations to buy grain are the highest they have ever been, says Phillips. ”When farmers still give grain in spite of all their troubles, it motivates urbanites to write cheques.”

But with drought devastating harvests in many parts of the world, the price of grain has been going up to levels not seen since the mid-1990s, so the donated cash buys less food.

Since 1983, CFB members have provided over 800,000 tonnes of food assistance to Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Central and South America.

In spite of these efforts, the United Nations reports the supply of food aid is shrinking at a time when the number of hungry people is rising to unprecedented levels.

The U.N. World Food Programme estimates that at least one-quarter of the people who need donations to feed themselves will not get help. Hardest hit will be Africa, where famine has gripped countries like Ethiopia and Eritrea..

”We’re very concerned,” says Cornelius. ”We are very tight for resources ourselves, and we see prices going up. So we already know that we will not be able to respond at the level we want to next year.”