Region braces for poor rains
Dar es Salaam. The government said yesterday it would conduct an assessment of the likely impact of poor rains on the country’s food security.
Agriculture permanent secretary Matthew Mtigumwe told The Citizen that although reports show that Tanzania is among countries that would be affected by poor rains this year, it was too early to make conclusion on the impact on food security.
“It’s true that weather conditions are not conducive, but it’s too early to comment on their impact,” he said.
A statement issued on Sunday by the Climate Prediction and Application Centre (ICPAC) of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (Igad) said that conditions were likely to be drier than usual in the coastal regions of Tanzania, western Kenya, southern and southeastern Ethiopia, central and northeastern Somalia, Uganda and South Sudan.
“Poor October to December rains, followed by abnormally high temperatures since January 2019 are leading to rapid deterioration of pastoral resources and have started affecting livelihoods,” the statement said.
But Mr Mtigumwe said while rainfall deficit was likely to reduce agricultural production this year, the country would make use of its available food stocks to plug the gap.
“During the harvest season that ended in July 2018, we had surplus food harvests, but the government will only be in a position to comment on whether or not the stocks will be enough to cover any shortfall after conducting an assessment on the likely impact,” he said.
Meanwhile, the official in charge of the main weather forecast station manager, Mr Samuel Mbuya, said it was forecast that seasonal rains would have started by the end of this month, but warned that there will be a shortage of rain in various parts of the country.
He said Zanzibar and Morogoro, Coast, Dar es Salaam, Tanga, Manyara, Mwanza, Kilimanjaro, Shinyanga, Geita and Kagera regions usually experience seasonal rains between March and May.
He added that long rains started last month in some regions, but the Tropical Cyclone Idai – which killed ay least 760 people in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe – has distorted rain cycles in Tanzania.
“There are only a few days left before the end of the month, and latest data indicates that the rains should set in any moment. However, this will not change our earlier forecasts predicting poor rains,” Mr Mbuya said.
According to ICPAC, the highest concern areas in terms of food security include Karamoja in Uganda, Northern and Central Somalia and most of South Sudan.
It alerted that dry conditions will persist throughout March 2019.
The drought has partly been blamed on Cyclone Idai, which was observed across the coast of Mozambique during the first and second week of March.
