Key messages

Generally, the 2012 growing season is well underway in most farming and agropastoral areas, where rainfall levels are average to above-average, except for the Tillaberi region, where start-of-season delays have been reported.

Optimism given current good growing season conditions in farming and pastoral areas is muted by concerns over the threat of a desert locust infestation. The National Locust Control Center has drawn up an emergency action plan. The immediate mobilization of resources for the detection, treatment, and prevention against locust proliferation is essential to avoiding significant crop and pasture losses.

With the depletion of household stocks, high demand during Ramadan could drive up prices for heavily consumed foodstuffs (millet and sugar) between July and August, without an increase in the scheduled volume of subsidized sales. With high prices and increased demand for cereals, assistance programs will not be sufficient to meet needs in July and August in certain areas of the Tillabéri region. Conditions will generally improve country-wide after the harvest, with areas currently classified in IPC Phase 3: Crisis improving to IPC Phase 2: Stress as of October.

The availability of newly harvested cereal crops and earnings from seasonal work across the country should bring food insecurity levels down into IPC Phase 1: Minimal between November and December, except in the Tillabéri region