Having lost 30 per cent of its crops this year to drought, plagues and locusts, East Timor will need 15,000 tons of emergency food assistance during the upcoming "lean season," the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization said Friday, according to dpa. According to field research conducted by the agency and the UN's World Food Programme, a major food crisis is looming for up to 220,000 East Timorese, or one-fifth of the conflict-torn, impoverished country's population, unless the international aid community provides emergency assistance in the next six months. "A poor harvest this year has worsened the already fragile livelihoods of people all over Timor but especially among the poorest people living in rural and more remote districts," said Anthony Banbury, the World Food Programme's regional director for Asia. Production of maize, Timor's most important crop, declined 30 per cent to 70,000 tons this year while cereals, cassava and tubers were down 25 to 30 per cent, the agencies said. Rice production also fell 20 per cent. The agencies predicted that East Timor would suffer a food deficit of 86,000 tons during the coming months, of which 71,000 tons would be satisfied by commercial imports. "There remains a cereal deficit of 15,000 tons that will need to be bridged through international food assistance," the Food and Agricultural Organization said in a statement released by its regional headquarters in Bangkok.
