Food insecurity in south sudan worsens

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization says it has
less than half the funding it needs to help ensure food
security in parts of South Sudan. The agency wants to send
emergency livelihood kits to farmers, fishers and
pastoralists as the risk of famine grows.
The FAO has appealed for $108-million for its revised Crisis
Response Plan. But so far it's received just $42-million.
Jeff Tschirley, who's in charge of the agency's Emergency
and Rehabilitation Division, said conflict is complicating the
humanitarian crisis.
"The situation started off badly in December when the
violence started. But in the last six weeks we've seen a very
sharp deterioration in the food security situation. More than
a third of the population is at level four or level five in the
index that we use to measure food security. And there's a
significant risk of an impending food crisis."
The conflict has taken a severe toll on South Sudan.
"Reserves are exhausted. Infrastructure's been damaged.
Assets have been abandoned. Agricultural cycles and such
[have] been disrupted. And there's a major problem with
access due to the security situation," he said.
The areas hardest hit by fighting between government forces
and rebels are Jonglei, Upper Nile and Unity States. There
are many displaced people there.
Tschirley said, "[You've] got camps set up nearly
spontaneously by people where they think they might be
able to find some security. But it still involves women going
out into the countryside to fetch firewood, or for other
things, that really exposes them to significant risk. The
other states - the ones that are more calm - those are less
impacted. In those cases we are actually focusing on
boosting food production by providing quality seed and
planting materials, veterinary services and things like this."
The FAO's emergency livelihood kits contain seeds, fishing
hooks and-what it calls - fundamental survival tools.
Tschirley said the FAO would be able to help many more
people if it receives the full $108 milliion requested.
"If we are able to get the additional resources to come up to
108 million, we'll be able to support another two-million
people with these livelihood kits. So far, we're supporting a
little over 200,000 vulnerable households. That's about [1.2
million] people. In this case we've targeted the riverine
areas. These areas also are in their rainy period. And
access becomes more problematic the longer we go into the
period," he said.
The FAO says time is of the essence. The rains could cause
floods and further displacement, as well as a greater lack of
access for aid groups. And then there's the time it takes to
grow crops with the seeds in the emergency kits. Tschirley
said at least six weeks are needed to grow vegetables big
enough to eat.