The Central African Republic (CAR), immersed in conflict that has killed thousand people and driven more than a half-million from their homes over the past year, now faces a looming food crisis, the United Nations warned Monday, calling for urgent action to provide crop seeds to farmers. Crop production has decreased sharply after the civil conflict that started in the northeast last December spread through the rest of the country, and seeds now are in short supply due to looting and because people have eaten them rather than saving them for planting. "Desperate farmers have been selling tools and livestock so that they can feed their families, which leaves them without means of making an income, and raids on livestock and agricultural equipment have been widespread," U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) emergency director Dominique Burgeon said in Rome.
