<!-- Start of picture text --> Numbers of Harvest cycle Livelihood<br>HRD Appeals<br>months post Farmers actions (average farmer) protection Early Warning Data Process and<br>harvest threshold and and Response<br>Response<br>survival threshold<br>-2 Look for non-farm work<br>Rainfall fails<br>-1 Eat less preferred food<br>0 Harvest what is there<br>LIAS data available<br>Use savings, sell non-productive assets<br>1 Harvesting Borrow money from those not affected LEAP data available<br>Cut back on durable purchases<br>2 Two-season: planting for Cut back on input investments<br>HRD released<br>next season (if two cropping seasons)<br>3<br>Reduce food intake<br>4<br>5<br>Respond to save<br>6 One season: planting for livelihoods<br>next season<br>7 Sell productive assets Possible Response<br>through PSNP FCB<br>8<br>9 Possible Response<br>through<br>10 Respond to save humanitarian<br>Increased mortality<br>lives assistance<br>11<br><!-- End of picture text --> FIGURE 5: A STYLIZED TIMELINE OF DROUGHT, FARMER COPING STRATEGIES AND RESPONSE VIA PSNP FCB AND HRD APPEALS (ADAPTED FROM CLARKE AND HILL 2012) Typically, if crops are lost due to the failure of rains, during the first two months following the harvesting season households employ relatively low cost coping strategies. These may include changing the composition of their food intake, looking for alternative employment opportunities, selling non-essential assets or borrowing money. When the use of these initial coping strategies is insufficient to ensure adequate food security, households may resort to higher cost coping strategies, such as reducing food intake and selling productive assets<sup>58</sup> , or, for farmers in _belg_ -receiving areas, investing less in farming inputs for the next season. These coping strategies may have long-term impacts on the household’s livelihood strategy, and would be used by households between two and eight months following the main harvesting season as grain stocks decline and foods needs cannot be met. Upon the exhaustion of all high-cost coping strategies, drought-related mortality increases; this would occur approximately 10 or 11 months following the main harvest. Household consumption at this point would fall below the survival threshold and live-saving interventions become necessary.

Timely interventions to address food insecurity resulting from drought can prevent the need of farmers to employ high-cost coping strategies, thereby protecting lives and livelihoods. On the assumption that interventions through the PSNP’s FCB would be possible within two months of the release of early warning information (Hobson and Campbell, 2012), a drought response would be feasible during the

> 58 As Clarke and Hill (2013) discuss, based on evidence of the use of coping strategies, it is not clear whether households typically employ the coping strategy of reducing food intake or selling productive assets first. However, Lybbert et al. (2004) shows that drought in Southern Ethiopia did not cause farmers to sell livestock, indicating that typically farmers try to avert the loss of productive assets and use this coping strategy only when all other coping strategies are insufficient to secure food requirements.

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