Summary
Prepared in collaboration with MINAGRI/PASAR-EU
Project
Rains were moderate and fairly well distributed in May, which allowed sorghum, the main seasonal crop, to mature, and sweet potatoes, cassava, and bananas to further develop. However, the heavy rains of late April and early May caused the maturing beans to rot in the fields, especially in high-altitude areas. The preliminary impressions from the teams that visited f the country during this season's 2001 B crop assessment are that crop production is generally better than the corresponding season last year when the rains prematurely ended by mid-May and crops failed. The results of the joint crop assessment will be available by the end of June and be detailed in next month's Report.
In Bugesera Region, fewer malnourished children are being admitted to nutritional centers, but there are more cases of severe acute malnutrition since February-March. This paradoxical situation is due to the following: 1) families that migrated to other regions late last year to cope with food shortages have returned home where they have nothing to harvest and their children have little to eat; 2) the very poor and destitute who were not even able to migrate did not cultivate as they had no access to seeds, nor are they harvesting; 3) through joint UNICEF and WFP efforts, Nyamata Hospital was recently funded to provide free food to mothers of severely malnourished children so they can stay at the hospital and their children can recover, increasing the number of admissions; and 4) since April, a WFP shortage of nutritionally fortified supplementary food normally distributed to feeding centers, coupled with poor distribution of available therapeutic formula milk among the registered therapeutic centers of the region, slowed the recovery in children.
Food security improved markedly in the areas where it had been most worrisome for the last 12 months. In fact, the provinces that had been most affected by last year's droughts - Kigali Rurale, Kibungo, and Umutara Provinces - appear to have among the best yields of beans, sorghum, sweet potatoes, and cassava this season. This unexpected but welcome result is due to the location of these provinces in the low- and mid-altitude zones where crops were less damaged by the excess rains than in higher altitude provinces. However, as a result of last years' recurrent drought, the cultivated area was lower than normal in Bugesera Region. For the second consecutive month, no new cases of foot-and-mouth disease were reported in Rwanda and the quarantine measures that had been taken in the livestock sector will be eased across the country, which will nearly fully restore the traditional livelihood systems in pastoralist areas in northeastern Rwanda.
In mid-May, there was fighting between the army, assisted by the population, and rebels who had infiltrated the northwestern province of Gisenyi. However, the population was not displaced, and no new food security crisis has emerged in the area, as was the case from 1997 to early 1999.
Over the past two weeks, the market has responded to the current and expected supply and demand conditions of food staples in Rwanda. All prices decreased in the 36 markets monitored with the arrival of Season B 2001 harvests.
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