Swaziland's Dry Spell Upends Sunny Outlook On Food

— A prolonged dry spell with scorching temperatures has undone an optimistic outlook for Swaziland's harvest of maize, the staple. Instead, experts are now predicting another round of scarcity and hand-outs in the perennially food-insecure country. "Rainfall was normal to above normal in spring and early summer, and half the country experienced rain every day in December 2013. Unfortunately the lowveld had erratic rainfall when the rest of the country was soaked, and then the rains there stopped entirely. That occurred at the critical time when the maize crop was tasselling, and the maize cobs were supposed to come out," Andrew Dlamini, a statistician with the government's central statistics office, told IRIN. "Particularly hard-hit [are] the southern Shiselweni Region and the eastern Lubombo Region. We did an inspection of those areas... [recently] and we were struck at how green and lush the mountains look. But it's all weeds, and they are not the edible kind. But people are scrounging for whatever they can put in their and their children's mouths because the crops have been decimated by lack of rainfall and high temperatures," Charles Thwala, a crop production specialist based in the commercial city of Manzini, told IRIN. This year's January dry spell was part of an emerging patternof the past decade. Charles Magongo, a consultant to the agriculture ministry, told IRIN, "Certain parts of the country go dry at mid-summer, and this has been going on since 2006 - long enough to establish a pattern and for mitigation plans to be considered. "Even so-called drought-resistant crops like cotton and sorghum require some water. But the problem is the subsistence farmers consider these as [supplementary] crops to maize. They grow to eat, not to sell to market. What they want to eat is maize," he said.