Ethiopia: Crop failure shows scale of food crisis

As the food crisis hitting the world’s poor forces food security onto the agenda at today’s meeting of G8 leaders in Japan, across the world in Ethiopia it has taken its toll on their most common source of nutrition.

Poor rainfall on already arid land has meant that last season’s crop of teff, a cereal that is ground down to make a sour pancake-like dish called injera, has largely failed.
Mr Kamara, a recently returned program manager for World Vision in Ethiopia, said land in some parts of the country was so dry that locals were eating cactus, one of the few plants that will grow under such conditions.

“I have never seen that before, it’s that bad,” he said. “There are high levels of malnutrition, which you can clearly see. But what is interesting about Ethiopia is the failure of the rain has been compounded by the increased food prices, so even the little food that is available is not easily affordable.”

The Age