LONDON (AlertNet) - Niger’s food crisis, the worst in its history, has been unfolding over many months. Here is an outline of how it developed.

August 2004 This month is normally the height of the rainy season, but hardly any rain falls. Many crops ruined.

August-October The country’s worst locust invasion in 15 years eats most of the crops that survived the drought. An estimated 240,000 hectares are treated with pesticides, according to Niger's Department of Crop Protection.

October Niger has one of the smallest harvests for many years. The government estimates there is a deficit of 223,500 tonnes and 3.7 million people face food shortages.

November Niger’s government and the United Nations ask international donors for help but receive no response.

February 2005 Government starts selling cereals at below-market prices. The World Food Programme launches an emergency operation to feed 400,000 people at a cost of $4.2 million. It says women and children particularly at risk.

May The Food and Agriculture Organisation appeals for $4 million for emergency seeds and cattle feed. FAO warns that farmers need seeds before the planting season ends to ensure sufficient harvests in October.

May 19 WFP launches a flash appeal for $16.2 million for Niger. It warns 3.6 million people are in critical need of food aid, including 800,000 children. Calls it a “silent crisis”.

June 2 Two weeks later, no funds have been pledged. UN says Niger’s government stocks have run out.

June 7 Government launches food loans to help more than 2 million subsistence farmers.

June 22 WFP has only received a third of what it needs to fund emergency operations.

July 12 WFP says it needs to triple the number of people receiving food aid to 1.2 million at a cost of an additional $12 million. Starving children reported dying every day in feeding centres. Aid workers find it difficult to source food supplies – nearby Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin and northern Nigeria have also been affected by drought.

July 13 UN says government must give out free food to the most vulnerable groups to stave off famine.

July 18 FAO has received only one pledge in response to its May appeal - Sweden has contributed $650,000.

Rains begin, but relief workers warn that more aid is needed to save starving children.

July 19 WFP says funding needs are sky-rocketing because it’s now a matter of saving lives. Jan Egeland, UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, says it would have cost $1 a day to prevent malnutrition among children if the world had responded immediately. Now it will cost $80 to save a malnourished child’s life.

July 22 Jan Egeland says he is confident the UN’s $30.7 million target will be met, but warns it will soon be increased. He says it took images of dying children to “make the world wake up”.

The UN has received $6.6 million, and another $7.6 million has gone to other humanitarian organisations and the Niger government. In addition more than $10 million have been pledged.

July 26 Niger’s main opposition party, the Party for Democracy and Socialism, strongly criticises the government’s handling of the food crisis.

July 27 Nigerien President Tandja Mamadou begins a tour of some of the worst affected areas.

July 29 UNICEF appeals for an additional $14.6 million to care for 32,000 children suffering from severe malnourishment and 160,000 from moderate malnourishment.

The World Health Organisation warns that Niger faces an outbreak of deadly diseases because of poor sanitation and hunger. Diseases include cholera, tuberculosis, malaria, measles and diarrhoea.

July 31 UN doubles the number of people it plans to feed to 2.5 million.

August 1 Torrential rains over the last few days raise hopes of a good harvest. Aid workers warn, however, that the same rains could stop them from delivering aid to the neediest villages.

August 2 Mamadou reassures the country that the food situation is improving. He promises to boost national cereal stocks and modernise farming to ensure this kind of crisis doesn’t happen again.

August 9 WFP begins large-scale free food distribution to stave off starvation. Until now WFP has distributed food via school meals and food-for-work programmes.

August 23 UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan visits some of the worst affected areas.

August 30 WFP says it has received $28 million towards its appeal of $57.6 million.

September 7 Niger’s national health service says 22 people have died of cholera in the northeast region of Tahoua. The outbreak was caused by the onset of rains.

September 13 Médecins Sans Frontières says tens of thousands of children are not getting enough food and an increasing number are dying of malnutrition. In the Zinder region the under five mortality rate has risen to 5.3 per 10,000 per day.

September 15 WFP says it plans to stop widespread food distribution once the harvest is over in October in order to avoid distorting local market prices. MSF says this will be too soon.

September 16 Prime Minister Hama Amadou says the country’s crops will be harvested by the end of September and Niger will no longer need large-scale food distribution.

September 20 World Health Organisation sends 100,000 anti-malaria drugs to protect malnourished children from the infection.

September 22 Delayed food aid is predicted to arrive at the same time as the newly harvested millet. Some experts warn this may lower millet prices, forcing poor families to sell more crops to pay off debts and leaving them with little food for their own use. The effect, they say, would be a new cycle of hunger and poverty.