From: jnr@igc.apc.org (Jim Rosenfield)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african
Subject: Re: 10/07 Wire stories on hunger
Date: 8 Oct 92 00:22:00 GMT
Nf-ID: #R:cdp:1471700165:cdp:1471700172:000:3876
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!jnr    Oct  7 17:22:00 1992


/* Written  5:19 pm  Oct  7, 1992 by jnr in cdp:hunger.general */
APn  10/06 0139  Somalia-Hapless Farmers

Copyright, 1992. The Associated Press. All rights reserved. 

By EDITH M. LEDERER   

JAMBALUL, Somalia (AP) -- In this famine-stricken country where
hundreds die of starvation every day, Nasir Ali Ahmed can't sell
the corn he's been harvesting. 

The market is so flooded with food looted from foreign donors
that prices are tumbling. Local farmers like Ahmed just can't
compete. 

If Ahmed sells at the local market price of $6.60 for a 110-pound
sack, he'd lose three-quarters of his investment. 

"We have this maize (corn) which is expensive, but nobody will
buy it until it is the same price as the looted maize," Ahmed
said as he surveyed a bin overflowing with corn in his farmyard. 

"These looted commodities may help those who are not in a
position to feed themselves, because prices are cheap," said
fellow farmer Nur Mohammud Siyad. "But it is a great loss for big
farmers like us because we need to pay the cost of running our
farm from the sale of maize." 

Food has become virtually the only tradeable commodity left in a
country wracked by one of the century's most devastating famines,
a country torn by clan warfare that has been so thoroughly looted
that even sewer pipes are dug up and sold for scrap. 

In the Bakaara market in Mogadishu, about 20 miles to the east,
sacks of Argentine corn marked as a gift from the U.N. World Food
Program were piled alongside U.S. rice, beans and sorghum and
French wheat. 

"The imported food is cheaper because nobody paid money for it.
It's either looted or it may have been sold by people who
received it and wanted money instead," said Hassan Ali Siyad, who
runs a warehouse. 

What makes Somali corn so expensive is the cost of gasoline, now
about $2.50 a gallon, which powers the irrigation pumps that
bring water from the Shebelle River. 

Some relief experts blame the big farmers for hoarding food to
make a huge profit during the famine instead of selling at
reasonable prices and avoiding needless deaths. 

"There is not a lot of sympathy for these farmers because to a
certain extent they brought it on themselves," said Rhodri
Wynn-Pope, team leader for the relief agency CARE. 

"However, in the interest of the economic recovery of Somalia, a
plan will have to be devised to ensure their livelihood without
making an excessive profit out the system," she said. 

Hussein Moalim Imam, team leader for the British charity Oxfam in
the lower Shebelle, said the international community should start
buying locally produced corn and sorghum to feed the hungry or to
distribute as seed for poor farmers. 

"This would trigger the country's agricultural sector and
contribute to employment," he said. 

Imam, who studied at California State University in San Luis
Obispo, said international donors could easily buy 10,000 tons
locally this season. 

The U.N. estimates that 50,000 tons of food are needed every
month to feed 2 million Somalis threatened with starvation. 

With encouragement, said Imam, farmers could produce 25,000 tons
of corn and sorghum next season and 35,000 tons after another two
good seasons. 

"The private relief agencies and international donors are
underestimating what the Somali farmers can produce," he said.
"If they really encourage production, it's unbelievable what they
can do." 

Holdbrook Arthur, director of operations for the U.N. World Food
Program, which distributes donor food, said he planned to find
out what kind of stocks the farmers have. 

"Then we can put it to our headquarters to see if it's possible
to buy some of the product from them," he said. 

Imam said Oxfam is already buying an improved local corn seed
called Somtux. The International Committee of the Red Cross and
the Irish charity Concern are also arranging to purchase local
seed. 
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american