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NEPAL: Food supplies running low in western hills
KATHMANDU, 21 May 2010 (IRIN) – Food security for more than 600,000 people in the western hills of Nepal is set to deteriorate, aid agencies warn.
With already low agricultural production in the more food-insecure areas, inflation is exacerbating matters further.
“A lot of villagers are opting for more desperate coping mechanisms,” Richard Ragan, country representative for the World Food Programme (WFP), told IRIN in Kathmandu.
Many villagers are already reducing the number of meals they eat each day, cutting portions, or migrating to urban areas or India for work, he said.
“In a desperate attempt to buy food, families are even selling their livestock and household assets and the out-migration [to Nepali cities and India] has increased already by 40 percent,” Ragan said.
Typifying that reality is Chattra Bahadur Chettri, a farmer from the western district of Bajura working in the Nepalese capital.
“I came here with my children to avoid any more hardship,” the 50-year-old said.
Food inflation
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the cost of staple food items such as rice, pulses and wheat is as high or even higher than at the peak of the international food crisis in August 2008.
Rice, a staple part of the Nepalese diet, has increased from US$0.34 per kg in 2008 to over $0.50 this year, local traders say.
With no increase in income and unemployment on the rise, even a slight increase in price has a knock-on effect on people’s purchasing power, WFP notes.
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