What's New

IFPRI launched the Excessive Food Price Variability Early Warning System today. This new tool measures excessive food price variability and is the only mechanism currently available to identify time spans of increased price variability. It is updated daily and forewarns policymakers and humanitarian agencies of periods of time with excessive food price variability.

The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) has released a food security brief for North Africa and the Middle East which examines food price trends in these areas. Increasing food prices are expected to have a stronger impact among populations where chronic food insecurity is more widespread, such as Pakistan, Yemen, Sudan, Morocco, Syria, Egypt, and Iran.

The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) has released a food security alert for East Africa, stating that the region’s current food security crisis is likely to worsen due to below-average rainfall forecasts for March-May, 2011. Rising food prices and declining household purchasing power in areas of Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya have pushed levels of acute malnutrition above emergency thresholds in these regions. The worst-case scenario predicts rainfalls of less than 50 percent of average in the coming six months.

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The Famine Early Warning Systems Network has released a food security alert for East Africa, citing ongoing drought, uncertain rainfall predictions, and increasing international food prices. Rainfall totals were less than 30 percent of average in certain regions of Ethiopia, Somalia, and Kenya from October-December 2010. This severe water shortage led to a failure of January-February harvests in the region. FEWS NET predicts that as many as five million people in the area will have difficulty meeting basic food and water requirements in the coming months.

Read the full report .