ALERT LEVEL: NO ALERT Monthly Food Security Update WATCH FEBRUARY 2006 WARNING EMERGENCY

CONTENTS Summary and implications

Summary and implications...... 1 Five months after the end of a growing season producing an estimated Seasonal calendar ...... 1 196,013 MT grain surplus, the household food situation is still adequate. Current hazard summary ...... 1 Grain inventories around the country have been tightening since Food security conditions ...... 1 January, though supplies in northern regions (Louga and Saint-Louis) Markets ...... 2 are improving.

Seasonal calendar

Current hazard summary

• Grain transfers are still limited in a large part of the country. • Millet prices are up slightly in the country’s leading market towns with the exception of Kolda and Tambacounda, where prices are down. • Grazing lands in the south are still threatened by brush fires spreading into the region, which are a common phenomenon at this time of year.

Food security conditions

On the whole, the food situation is satisfactory for the time being. To be sure, the slowdown in grain transfers from the groundnut basin to the northern reaches of the country is affecting the food access of farm families, but large rice supplies (locally grown and imported crops) are helping to normalize market conditions, particularly with the Market Regulation Agency (ARM) working with rice importers to protect rice farmers in the Valley so as to discourage exports.

A look at conditions in stock-raising areas shows an expansion in the size of the area consumed by brush fires since the month of January, bringing the total to 400,000 hectares nationwide. Most of the areas destroyed by fire lie in the Kolda and Tambacounda regions.

The slowdown in new outbreaks of brush fires in the north, sparing grazing lands, should help pastoralists get through the crisis engendered by the current slump in sales and improve their food access over the next few months.

In fact, with the end of the marketing season for groundnut crops, hopefully, farmers will begin selling their millet crops, with grain transfers to the northern part of the country picking up.

Right now, wild plant products and vegetable crops represent an important source of income for residents of northern Senegal and the coastal area.

FEWS NET/Senegal Tel : +221 820 18 60 Address : BP29955 Aéroport FEWS NET is funded by the US Agency for International Development Fax : + 221 820 18 65 L.S.Senghor Code Postal 14542 www.fews.net E-mail: [email protected] Dakar Senegal

SENEGAL: MONTHLY FOOD SECURITY UPDATE FEBRUARY 2006

Markets

Trader inventories on regularly monitored markets in all parts of the country have been tightening since January. However, supplies on northern markets (in the Louga and Saint-Louis regions) showed some improvement in the second half of this month (Table 1).

Table 1. Souna millet supplies on the country’s leading markets (in MT)

MARKETS October November December January February

Dakar 40.0 111.0 266.0 150.0 18.3

Diourbel 35.0 9.0 35.5 23.0 10.8

Fatick 1.0 2.0 17.7 10.8 1.4

Kaolack 28.0 30.0 120.0 60.0 37.3

Kolda 1.0 2.0 0.0 0.8 2.0

Louga 110.0 15.0 450.0 90.0 150.0

Saint-Louis 249.0 220.0 177.0 60.5 80.0

Tambacounda 1.5 21.5 65.0 15.0 13.0 Thiés 62.5 25.0 65.0 0.0 45.0 Ziguinchor 2.5 0.0 18.0 2.5 2.8 Bambey 6.7 1.6 1.9 2.5 3.3 Gouille Mbeuth 57.0 65.0 131.0 35.0 45.0 Mpal 132.0 180.0 175.5 70.0 65.0 Passy 10.0 6.0 40.0 6.0 20.0 Porokhane 7.0 40.0 57.0 20.0 7.5 Ourossogui 2.1 15.0 3.8 10.0 7.7 Total 745.0 743.0 1,623.0 556.0 509.0

Source: CSA/SIM (Food Security Commission/Market Information System)

Surveys of farmers and traders in high-production (Kaolack, Fatick) and low-production (St Louis, Matam) areas conducted early this month found market supplies of locally-grown grain crops (souna millet, sorghum and maize) still fair to poor at best, despite good official production forecasts. This could be attributable to a large extent to the later than usual start-up of marketing activities for groundnut crops and expected low levels of collections in rural areas, prompting farmers to pare back their sales of coarse grain crops.

In addition to these factors, the main threshing season for millet crops which normally follows the marketing of groundnut crops has still not begun, which largely explains why most grain transfers are being channeled to Senegal’s large urban population centers where prices are more rewarding.

Millet supplies in Dagana and Podor departments and the are low. Right now, the effects of this grain deficit in the first two areas are being masked by large supplies of locally grown rice, whose price currently stands at somewhere around 200 CFAF/kg, except in Rosso Béthio, where it is 160 CFAF/kg. Elsewhere in the country, households are falling back on imported rice selling for anywhere from Table 2. Grain imports (in MT)

200 to 225 CFAF/kg. Products December 2005 January 2006

Rice 50,500.00 11,979.00 Commercial imports, limited to rice and wheat, Wheat have visibly fallen off since December. Rice 35,642.62 13,000.34 imports are down from 50,500 to 11,979 MT and Wheat semolina 1,380.75 2,564.70 wheat imports from over 35,000 to a mere 13,000 Source: DPV/Bureau du Port (Crop Protection Service/Port Office) MT (Table 2).

2 SENEGAL: MONTHLY FOOD SECURITY UPDATE FEBRUARY 2006

The steady tightening of grain supplies has Figure 1. Trends in the average retail price of millet in regional driven up prices for locally grown grain capitals since June 2003 crops in the country’s groundnut basin (by DAKAR KOLDA KAOLACK LOUGA SAINT-LOUIS TAMBA ZIGUINCHOR FATICK THIES DIOURBEL

26.5 percent in Fatick, 13.4 percent in 275 Kaolack, 8 percent in Diourbel and 4.7 250 percent in Louga) as well as in Saint-Louis (by 21.8 percent). In contrast, prices are 225 down in Kolda (13 percent) and 200 Tambacounda (5 percent) (Figure 1) and 175 have more or less leveled off in Dakar and 150

Thiès. Price (CFAF/Kg) 125

Current price levels are running an average 100 of 7.3 percent above the norm for 2001-05, 75 with the highest prices found in Saint-Louis 50 Jul Jul Jul Oct Oct Oct Apr Apr Feb Feb Feb Jun Jun Mar Mar Sep Dec Sep Dec Sep Dec Nov Nov Nov Aug Aug Aug (17.28 percent above normal) and Louga May May Jun 03 Jun Jan 2004 Jan 2005 Jan 2006 Jan (12.7 percent above normal). Mar 2004 Source: Food Security Commission / Market Information System / FEWS NET The same upward trend in retail prices for millet found on urban markets is also Figure 2. Trends in the average retail price of millet on rural evident on rural markets (Figure 2), with the markets since October 2005 Passy market (in the ) and the OCT 05 NOV 05 DEC 05 JAN 06 FEB 06 Mpal market (in the Saint-Louis region) 300 reporting the steepest price hikes. Thus, prices in Passy rose from 90 to 135 250 CFAF/kg, or by 50 percent, between January and February. In Mpal, prices 200 jumped from 150 to 190 CFAF/kg. 150 Hopefully, with the groundnut marketing season about to end, market conditions will 100 improve thanks to the expansion in grain (CFAF/kg) price millet Retail supplies in general and millet supplies in 50 particular. 0 BAMBEY GOUILLE MPAL OUROSSOGUI PASSY POROKHANE MBEUTH

Source: Food Security Commission / Market Information System / FEWS NET

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