Refugees, drought affect food supply in Arua markets
What you need to know:
- An influx of refugees from South Sudan coupled with the long dry spell have pushed prices upwards, writes Clement Aluma
The long dry spell coupled with the rising number of South Sudanese refugees into the region is likely to rise food prices and cause food insecurity in households, Arua district leaders have warned.
Already, the prices of common foodstuffs in the markets in the West Nile sub-region have gone up as farmers reach into their granaries to cash in on the lucrative trade in foodstuffs forgetting about the dry spell.
The region is currently hosting about 500,000 refugees threatening to surpass the population of some of the districts, which are hosting them.
Costly foodstuffs
Also the departure from the policy of distributing food for money to the refugees by World Food Programme (WFP) has empowered the refugees into looking for local supplies.
“Food is very expensive in the refugee camps and the vendors think selling food there is a way of making good money,” said Nelson Dada, the chairman of Arua District Market Vendors Association.
“ I think it’s affecting us, people are now selling everything forgetting the future”
He adds: “We are not secure, I am already predicting famine, we may run out of food and this is happening even before the schools open.”
For instance, a kilogramme of beans in Arua market is now at Shs3,000 from Shs 2,400. But in the refugee camps, a kilogramme of beans costs Shs3,300 and a kilo of maize flour costs Shs2,500 from Shs2,000 and a kilo of cassava flour is Shs1,500 from Shs1,000.
Gertrude Badaru, the Arua District agricultural officer, said most farmers are selling their produce to the markets and refugee camps without keeping some food in reserve.
“People should learn to reserve food for the future, I know the number of malnourished children and their mothers are going to rise,” she notes.
Produce enough
Hamza Manzu, district councilor for Ogoko, points out the number of refugees who had entered the region is too big to be handled by the local authorities alone.
“Arua District needs to sensitise the people especially in areas of reserving food, the little they have already produced must be used sparingly,” he said.
He urged United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) to also empower the local communities hosting the refugees to produce enough as they do with refugees.
But traders have downplayed the issue instead blaming it on the subsistence nature of farming by the local communities.
