Families receive relief food as El Niño bites harder

Climate change is affecting the world, but most African countries are paying little attention to it. But the emergency of an El Niño that has hit the southern part of the continent is biting harder on the food security situation of families in countries like Zambia.

Eliya Siamfwazya, 12, is from one of the affected families in Sinazongwe District, where food insecurity caused by drought has forced people to start surviving on relief food that World Vision is distributing in partnership with the government.

Eliya, 12, is thumb-signing to receive relief food on behalf of the family

“I have come to receive relief maize with mum because we have no food at home. Food has run out because we produced very little last year because rains were not enough,” Eliya explains. “We had a lot of sunshine last year [2014/2015 farming season] so crops did not do well.”

“The maize yield was very poor so we harvested very little. I also fear that this year [2015/2016 farming season] we may not produce food to eat because we have not rains and we are having too much sun. I think that people will have no maize in their homes this year,” says the boy who is in Grade 5.

Eliya’s mother, Eliya Siyafwanzya, says she only managed to produce six bags of maize from her field during the 2013/14 farming season because of lack of rains in the area.

“What we harvested finished in October so we have been selling a few animals we have to buy some food. Now World Vision has also decided to assist us with some relief food which we worked for in our community. This will go a long way in keeping us alive while we look up to the next harvest in May,” Eliya says.

“We are worried still that though we are hoping in the next harvest [for 2016], we may not harvest anything because we have not had rains for weeks and the fields are dry. As a result most people have resorted to cultivate small portions of their fields because rains started very late last year; rains started in December and we planted that very month but there is no proper rainfall,” she narrates.

Eliya, 52, hopes to focus on cultivating sorghum and millet in the future as maize, the staple food, has proved difficult in the times of the emerging El Niño.

Eliya is among the many receiving maize distributed by World Vision 

“Life will be difficult for us to in 2016 if we fail to harvest enough food after May. It will be hard to find food to feed the children and to pay for their education because we depend on farming for everything we need to survive,” says Eliya who is seated on the 50 kg bag of relief maize she has just received from one of the centres where World Vision is distributing over 230 bags of maize to affected families.

Maureen Siamalembe, a mother to six children, says the price of maize has drastically shot up because of the desperate situation people are in in Sinazongwe.

“The cheapest you can buy maize the size of 20 litre container is K50 (5 US dollars), which most of the families cannot afford. We are only able to buy this maize from people who own shops,” Maureen says.

“That bucket of maize is very little for a family of my size. Others even have more children than I have so the bucket can only last for a week,” she points out. “We have no food in the household because what we harvested last farming season finished in in December 2015.” 

Maureen says her family has opted to eating once in a day to save some food because the situation is currently difficult for them.

Humphrey Mwango, World Vision’s Humanitarian Emergency Affairs (HEA) staff responsible for the distribution of relief food in Sinazongwe District says the organisation has been tasked by the government to distribute about 111 metric tonnes of relief maize in the area.

Humphrey, World Vision HEA staff, works with community leaders to distribute food

“Eighty per cent of the allocated food has gone to food-for-work activities and 20 per cent has been given to the most vulnerable families – that have orphaned children, the aged and chronically ill people." 

“And the rainfall pattern has already shown that it is not any better than last farming season so we expect very low yields. As a result we may continue with this activity [relief food distribution] beyond the targeted month of April 2016, which has been earmarked according to Government’s DMMU [Disaster, Management and Mitigation Unit],” Humphrey explains.