State Minister of Agriculture Mitiku Kassa was buoyant to announce the number of food aid needy stood at 2.3 million when he made a speech at the release of the ‘Humanitarian Requirements Document for November‐December 2010 and beyond’ on Nov. 24, 2010.

He predicted further that ‘the beneficiary number to further decline and reach as low as less than a million in the coming few months given the anticipated overall improvement in food security in most areas of the country.’ (Read State Minister of Agriculture Mitiku Kassa speech HERE).

However, the beneficiaries number increased to 2.8 million in the Humanitarian Requirements document released on February 23, 2011.

The document explained:

The food security situation is, however, deteriorating in the south and south eastern pastoral and agro-pastoral areas following poor performance of the 2010 deyr/hagaya rains (October to December), which has resulted in water and pasture shortage. Accordingly, the findings of the multi-agency assessment and subsequent monitoring results indicate that approximately 2.8 million people require relief food assistance in 2011.

The data was revised further last month due to the La Niña weather pattern that affected the seasonal rains  of lowland areas in the south and south-eastern parts of the country.

As a result 255,943 more people in Oromia, Somali and SNNP states will need food aid in April and May,  according to the Revised Humanitarian Requirements Document’ released April 12, 2011. Add this to the data in the table above, the total number of people in need of food aid in the three regions would be slightly above 2 million and the country total around 3 million.

Still lower than 2010:

Mitiku Kassa’s expectation was not wrong, however. The number of aid recipients was below the one million mark on December 2010 as he predicted.

Though 3 million is a depressing figure, it is much lower than last year. In the first five months of 2010, 4.8 to 5.5 million Ethiopians were in need of food aid and that was the highest number for the year.(See the details in the table below)

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References:

Food Supply Prospects For The Year 2011 – Disaster Risk Management and Food Security Sector(DRMFSS), Ministry Of Agriculture (MOA). February 23, 2011. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Humanitarian Requirements – Joint Government and Humanitarian Partners’ Document. Feb. 2011, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Joint Government and Humanitarian Partners’ – Revised Humanitarian Requirements Document for South and Southeastern Parts of the Country. April 12, 2011. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.