NIGER / FOOD CRISIS

Hunger and disease is part of the daily life for the 1,500 people in Zermo, a small village in eastern Niger, even when nature is kind to them.

Zermo is one of the most affected villages in Zinder, which along with five other regions in the south have borne the brunt of the food crisis. Last year's drought and a locust invasion tipped the fragile balance between survival and death, as livestock perished and the sorghum fields were consumed by locust swarms.

The real problem of the people here is poverty, according to Government officials, the people have absolutely no money to buy food or medicines for their children, they depend on help from relatives and friends who themselves don't have enough. But aside from pity, officials have nothing else to offer. They say they cannot afford to give services and medicines for free.

Although Niger is huge, it cannot feed its people because of an archaic system of food production that is almost totally dependent on rain fed agriculture in the arid Sahel.

According to UN Resident Representative Michele Falavigna, not everybody understands what a malnourished person is.

Lack of access to clean water compounds the problem for the very young. Diarrhoea, combined with a lack of food, means that children waste away.

Adjibade Aboudou Karimou of UNICEF said there are some structural problem about malnutrition in Niger.

A key element, he said, was that traditionally women have little power and husbands determine how income is spent. Women don't get enough access to food and they cannot take care enough of their children as a consequence he added.

The path out of Niger's food insecurity was through the empowerment of women, he stressed, starting with schooling. Lack of female education is partly responsible for the high fertility rate: the average woman in Niger gives birth to 8.4 children.

"It's very difficult to sell prevention, said WFP spokesperson in Niamey, Stephanie Savariou, Its very difficult to warn the international community about a food crisis that is going to happen, to say that some children might die as a consequence. And the tragedy, she added, about this is that when it comes, when children die then the spectacular images trigger a lot of attention.

But even if the food aid shipments now underway reach Zermo, the villagers are unlikely to escape the cycle of poverty and starvation.

With the early start to the rains this season, the first signs of the new crop of sorghum and millet are beginning to appear. But many farmers were unable to sow, because desperate, they had eaten all their seeds. "Even if the rains are good this year the harvest will not be enough," said one elder."

While the current crisis may be easing as the humanitarian operation kicks into gear, the next seems already in the making.

=