Food security and climate change in Somalia

Written by Abdirahman A Adam Dhere

In 2012, food insecurity is quiet a major global alarm as 1 billion people are suffering from food shortage, and malnutrition, and the food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has concluded that we are still far from reaching millennium development goal (MDG).

Warranting food security – the elementary right of people to the food they need – is one of the greatest challenges facing the world. The challenge is most critical in low income, food-deficit countries. Of the 86 countries that are demarcated as low-income and food-deficient in Africa.

Regardless of over all expansions in food production and food security on global scale, many countries and whole regions have failed to make progress in recent decades. Sub Saharan Africa, for instance, produces less food per person today that it three decades ago and the number of chronically under nourished people has increased dramatically.

The World Food Summit, held by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome in 1996, reaffirmed the right of every one to safe and nutritious food.

Many of Africa’s agricultural and rural development problems have been related to misguided policies, week institutions and lack of well-trained human resource.

In sub Saharan Africa, the number of folks suffering from hunger is estimated at 239 million, and this number could upsurge in the near future. There are many instances of food insecurity in sub Saharan Africa, some of them having reached disastrous dimensions. For example, in the horn Africa esp. in south Somalia starvation early cautionary systems clearly identifies the risk in south central Somalia. In 2010 – 2011 but appropriate action to thwart the onset of famine was not taken. These could have been alleviated or prevented if the humanitarian response had been timely taken. Although the media focused on drought as the main reason, the 2011 Somalia was triggered by multiple factors that included conflict, the use of anti- terrorism legislating by the US government to prevent aid reaching Southern Somalia.

The circumstances is worsening in rural areas following consecutive seasons of poor rain fall and low river water levels. These have resulted in near total crop failures, reduced rural development opportunities, wide spread shortage of water and pasture – with consecutive increase in livestock deaths.

As local indispensable food prices continue to rise abruptly and livestock prices decrease significantly, access to food is rapidly diminishing among poor families.

As of May 2018. 2.7 million People cannot meet their daily requirements today and require critical humanitarian assistance, with more than half a million on the edges of famine. Another 2.7 Somalis need maintenance support to keep from sliding into crisis.

An estimated 300.000 children under age 5 are malnourished, including 48,000 who are severely malnourished and face a high risk of disease and death.

On the other hand if we glimpse back at the side of climate change in Africa and Somalia, many experts claim that climate change will aggravate the severity and number of extreme weather events. Such climate related hazards will be important security concerns and sources of susceptibility in the future regardless of whether they contribute to conflict. These will be particularly true where these hazards put large numbers of people at risk of death, requiring the diversion of either domestic or foreign military assets to provide humanitarian relief.

Vulnerability to extreme weather, however, is only moderately a function of physical exposure. Poor downgraded communities that lack access to infrastructure and facilities, that have minimal education and poor health care, and that exist in countries with poor governance are likely to be most vulnerable. Africa’s most vulnerable to the security consequences of climate change are parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and South Sudan.

In Somalia, following beneath average October to December 2018 (Deyr) rainfall, the April to June 2019 (Gu’) rainfall will also be below average. The drier than normal conditions are driving food insecurity, as households have begun spending more of their income on water, adding to their already high debt levels.

Written by: Abdirahman A Adam Dhere

Academic researcher, Writer and horn of Africa analyst.

Based on Hargeisa, Somaliland

Contact me:

Twitter: @AdenDheere04

Facebook Account: Sayid-Abdirahman Abdillahi

Blog Address: http://GargaarkaCilmiga.home.wordpress.com

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