Figure 1. Current estimated food security conditions, third quarter 2007 (Jul to Sep)   FULL-SIZE IMAGE Source: FEWS NET

Figure 2. Livelihood zones in Mauritania   FULL-SIZE IMAGE Source: FEWS NET

The agricultural season is fully underway, due to an increase in rain and storm activity in the southern part of the country and the resulting significant return of migratory populations. Rainfall has been significantly below normal in most of the country so far this season. Exceptions include the storms that occurred on August 6 and 7 that caused heavy damage (loss of human life and destruction of homes and infrastructures), especially in Oualata (where 41.5 mm of rain fell) and Tintane (where 81.2 mm of rain fell), and in part of the rainfed crops zone (see Figure 2, zone 6) including the southern parts of Hodh El Chargui, Assaba and Guidimakha. These locations, which have received average to good rainfall to date, constitute a large part of the production area for the country’s rainfed cereal crops. This strip also encompasses part of the mixed farming and stock farming zone in northern Gorgol and eastern Brakna. Before the rains began in August, pasture in these latter regions was not growing well due to long breaks with no rain, but with the rains the pastures are currently overrun with the flocks and herds from this region and neighboring herding areas.

Food security remains stable relative to previous months, despite the hunger period having extended three to four months longer than usual. This extension of the hunger period is due to last year’s poor harvests or the lateness of this year’s rains, depending on the zone. Aid programs carried out by the government, the World Food Programme (WFP) and donors have slowed the deterioration of food security, although they have not reversed the trend and enabled food security conditions to improve.

As the rainy season has only just begun, the high and extreme levels of food insecurity that had up to now been primarily affecting agricultural communities (Figure 1), are now also encompassing pastoral areas, where small to medium-sized herders are being significantly affected by limited access to cereals, water and livestock feed. Feed prices are skyrocketing due to the heavy demand, which cannot be met by the local markets, while animal prices are in a continuous decline.

The agricultural season in the border areas with Mali is progressing well. This is favorable for farmers, who have increased their cereal exports, but the heavy demand for seed has caused prices to rise slightly (ten percent over July’s prices). In contrast, Senegal’s season has been subject to a long delay in the entire border area with Mauritania. Given that the agricultural season in Senegal’s large groundnut-producing regions is rather uncertain, the overall situation in Senegal is not promising as far as possible trading with Mauritania is concerned.

Seasonal calendar and critical events

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Agricultural and plant health conditions

With the onset of the rains in the third dekad of July, the return of migratory populations accelerated. Information from the regional delegations of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock indicate that planting was done in August in most of the cereal production zones, and that the limitations of insufficient seed availability was largely overcome by purchasing sorghum and millet from Mali and by seed distributions from the Mauritanian government. The crops that are farthest along are at the tillering stage in Guidimakha, Assaba and Hodh El Gharbi.

The plant-health situation is normal throughout the country.

Pastoral conditions

The seasonal migrations, which had slowed as the rains arrived at the end of July so as to take stock of rainfall trends and adjust movements accordingly, resumed in all of the central and western areas of the mixed farming and herding zone (see Figure 2, zone 5). While access to water improved as ponds filled, pasture was still sparse and spatial distribution was poor. Large herders’ stock, heavily supplemented by livestock feed, is moving within a limited area. The movement of medium and small herds is limited, and they are being fed primarily on livestock feed purchased with the proceeds from selling bull calves and old milk cows. Livestock feed prices are fluctuating with the rainfall. At the end of July on the Boghé market, which is in a mixed farming and livestock area linked to Nouakchott by a paved road about 320 km long, the price per ton of granulated wheat fell by 12.2 percent, from 110,000 UM to 98,000 UM. With the dry episode in the first dekad of August, the price went back up to 104,000 UM. Small and medium herders continue to reduce their herds to both decrease expenses and purchase livestock feed to save the rest of their animals. These practices will weaken this group, because it will take several years of good pasture to rebuild the herds. This situation very often leads herders to change their lifestyle to mixed farming and stockbreeding; they then have trouble fitting into the agricultural system because they lack experience and have no land of their own.

Market conditions

Despite increased cereal imports from Mali and good availability of imported food products on all markets, prices of cereals and other imported foods are increasing. The increase results in part from the actions of Mauritanian cereal dealers, who had begun to reduce their stocks of cereals due to a lack of buyers, and then raised their prices again when demand increased in connection with the need for seed and shortages of the Village Food Safety Reserves (VFSRs).

Uncertainties regarding the development of the season, in particular over herding conditions, have heavily influenced livestock markets. In May and June, animal purchase prices varied depending on whether or not pasture and water existed. Now, prices are dropping for all livestock species, and previously they price decreases were only the migratory zones (4), the Senegal River valley (7) and the north (2), Prices have decreased by 13 to 30 percent depending on the zone and proximity to markets. The price reduction for camels is less noticeable (decline of eight percent in comparison to mid-July).

Because of high demand, the majority of the VFSRs, most of which were resupplied between May and June, are out of reserves, and households are having to turn to a local merchant system that has become more expensive due to a lack of competition. As of August 10, on the border markets of Hodh El Chargui, the sale of a sheep allowed a herder to buy only 90 kg of sorghum, compared to 115 kg in July. This erosion of purchasing power will likely deteriorate if weather trends do not reverse during this dekad since, for many herders and farmers, the agricultural and herding seasons take shape between the second dekad of August and the first dekad of September.

Food security conditions

Figure 3. Spatial distribution of vulnerable households in Mauritania FULL-SIZE IMAGE Source: WFP/NSO/FSO survey, June 2007

A food security assessment by the National Statistics Office (NSO) in June on behalf of the WFP and the Food Security Observatory (FSO) confirmed that there is no food security crisis in Mauritania. In some areas where production shortages have been significant, such as zone 7 and large parts of zones 4 and 5, the programs undertaken in support of affected households have brought the population back to normal hunger-period conditions The worst food security conditions exist in the zones with poor program coverage and in those where programs functioned poorly due to a lack of reserves, such as southeastern parts of zones 5 and 6 and the northern part of zone 5, especially in L’Affole and the western part of Tagant. Once the rains arrived, water access conditions improved significantly in the mixed farming and livestock zones and the rainfed crop zones. In contrast, the extreme rainfall shortage in the migratory herding zone (4) continues to affect the herders (Figure 3). The lack of pasture is forcing pastoralists to fall back on livestock feed, the prices of which continue to skyrocket.

In June 2007, WFP estimated that it had aided more than 700,000 people in Mauritania. To compare this with the survey results, it found that in the rural areas of the 10 wilayat surveyed (out of the total of 13 in the country), only 261,862 poor persons (13.7 percent of the rural population) currently are unable to regularly provide themselves with food, and that 153,749 people (8.1 percent of the rural population) could slip into this situation if appropriate measures were not taken in time. Overall, about 1,490,215 people are thought to have a normal amount of food for the season, and only 415,300 people (or 21.8 percent of the rural population) are considered to be in a situation of high or extreme food insecurity. This is a decrease of more than 48.6 percent compared to the 853,574 vulnerable people who from 2006 (479,915 beneficiaries) to June 2007 (373,659 beneficiaries) were beneficiaries of the programs underway. The cumulative effects of the programs developed and households’ various adaptive strategies have likely led to this improvement, but this trend is not likely to continue after the programs end, as long as there have not been new productive conditions to respond to the high level of population growth in a country where the rural labor force is increasingly tending to leave the rural production zones to try to fit into urban productive systems.