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Niger's Poor Can't Afford Abundant Food
While mothers continue to bring children weak with hunger to feeding centers, market stalls are filled with food — but at prices well out of the reach of many in this desperately poor nation. "It is the government's job to deal with the hungry, we the traders are here for business," said Ibrahim Baye, who sells millet, a staple in Niger, at a Maradi market. The well-stocked markets are deceptive. The food shortage is real. Last year locusts, in the worst invasion in 15 years, ravaged 7,000 square miles of Niger farmland. That and a subsequent drought cut cereal production by 15 percent last year, according to the United Nations. Hunger was a problem in Niger even before the locusts and drought. Today, more than a third of the nearly 12 million people in Niger face severe food shortages. Children are most at risk. On Tuesday, Baye shooed away beggars dressed in rags and staring at the heaped food on display. A friend sitting with him who gave only one name, Louali, said the grains on display had been stockpiled "and traders wait until the lean season to sell at double its price." Prices have dramatically increased. A bag of 220 pounds of millet went from $23 to $44. Few can afford that in the second-poorest nation in the world, where 64 percent of the people survive on less than $1 a day. Posted by: Fred 2005-08-03 |
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