AGRICULTURAL NEWS - About 41,2 million people in 13 Southern African countries will suffer food insecurity between now and March 2020, following low rainfall in the 2018/2019 growing season.
This was according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Synthesis Report on the State of Food and Nutrition Security and Vulnerability in Southern Africa.
The report was recently approved by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in Windhoek, Namibia.
The countries collectively harvested 37,5 million tons of grain in the 2018/2019 production season, which was 5,4 million tons fewer than the volume needed for consumption in a year.
The report estimated that 41,2 million people in these SADC member states, which included Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), eSwatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, would be food-insecure this year.
