ReliefWeb

Key points

• Higher use of negative livelihoods coping strategies among households headed by women

• Twice as many rural households have poor food consumption than urban households

• Food insecurity increasing among households who buy food

• Maize meal prices continued to fall in November but remain higher than last year

• Prices for wheat flour and pulses remain stable

Seasonal Outlook:

The peak of the lean season began a few months earlier than normal. Crisis (IPC Phase 3) outcomes are expected to continue in Lesotho throughout the peak period due to below normal off-season incomes and below-average wage rates for agricultural labour, as well as high food prices (FEWS NET). The number of food-insecure people in 2016/17 is estimated to have increased by 53 percent to 709,394 people compared to 2015/16, according to the latest Lesotho Vulnerability Assessment Committee evaluation. Northern parts of Lesotho, including the main cereal-producing regions of Berea and Leribe, have received heavy rainfall in the past month, following a season that was severely affected by El Niño-related dryness. The Lesotho Meteorological Service has forecasted below-average rainfall for January – March 2017 in the western and south-western parts of the country while the rest of the country is expected to receive average to above-average rainfall. However, the reduced 2016 harvest has limited the seed supplies available for this planting season. By early November, just over halfway through the current marketing year, 75,000 mt of maize had been imported from South Africa – 50 percent more than in the same period of the previous marketing year (FAO GIEWS).