The United States Provides Emergency Assistance to Drought Victims

December 21, 2006 -In response to the severe drought in southern Madagascar, U.S. Ambassador James D. McGee issued a disaster declaration on December 18 and the U.S. Government will immediately provide $50,000 in emergency assistance for the victims of this calamity.  In the weeks ahead, the United States plans to increase this assistance to about two million dollars in food aid.

The southern region is a drought-prone area that depends heavily on rain-fed agriculture. Failed rains in early 2006 led to crop failure that resulted in a severe food insecurity crisis affecting approximately 300,000 people in 32 communes spread over three regions: Androy, Anosy and Atsimo Andrefana.

U.S. government representatives from the USAID Food For Peace office and the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance collaborated with implementing partners to assess the situation in the south and found that food aid is required to meet needs until the next harvest in March/April 2007. In addition, the population did not have sufficient amounts of seeds to plant this year. The team also concluded that ensuring sustainable food security in the region requires that sustainable agriculture be revitalized.

In the immediate term, the U.S. government will provide $50,000 to import ten Metric Tons (MT) of improved varieties of maize to be delivered by air freight from Zambia to meet the seed needs for the current planting season. This variety of maize seeds was tested by FOFIFA for two years and proved to be drought resistant, disease resistant and higher yield than local varieties. In addition, the U.S. government will provide approximately 800 MT of food aid (approximate value of $482,297) through its implementing partners to meet the immediate needs of the most vulnerable population. In January, the U.S. government will supply approximately 2,440 MT of food aid (approximate value of $1.5 million) to Madagascar to support the affected population until the next harvest.

Beyond the immediate response, the U.S. government seeks to achieve a long term improvement in food security in the South through revitalization of the agriculture sector. The U.S. government believes that seed multiplication of appropriate varieties needs to be re-established in southern Madagascar and will work with the Ministry of Agriculture and other concerned development partners to explore this much needed intervention.