The U.N. food agency on Friday appealed for $50 million within the next 90 days to help farmers in the Horn of Africa with priority agricultural and pastoral activities, ahead of the region's upcoming planting season. "The international community needs to continue to support the most vulnerable households in Somalia and other arid and semi-arid lands in the Horn of Africa to cope with another possible dry spell," said Castro Camarada, the Food Agriculture Organization (FAO) sub-regional coordinator for Eastern Africa. Although the situation in the drought-affected areas of the Horn of Africa has improved in recent months, there are still some 8.1 million people in need of assistance in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and Djibouti, FAO said in a statement. In addition, the regional climate outlook for the coming rainfall season indicates increased likelihood of below- to near-normal rainfall. The $50 million would be used to implement a 90-day plan that would distribute crops and vegetable seeds, help implement irrigation schemes, run cash-for-work activities to restore agricultural infrastructure, and vaccinate livestock, among other activities. Since the start of the crisis last year, nearly 200,000 families across the Horn of Africa have participated in cash or voucher-for-work programs organized by FAO, receiving money they urgently need to buy food, while restoring roads, water reservoirs, and irrigation systems. FAO has also vaccinated and treated millions of animals against diseases, and has given agricultural training and tools to almost 160,000 farmers. "We can't avoid droughts, but we can put measures in place to try to prevent them from becoming a famine," said FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva.
