Regional Summary
♦ The Regional cereal harvest for 2013 is estimated at 35.11 million tonnes, representing a 0.2% increase over the 35.02 harvested in 2012. However, this year’s estimated Regional cereal production is 5% above the average Regional cereal production for the last five years (Table 1).
♦ The Region (excluding DRC, Madagascar and Seychelles) has recorded an overall cereal deficit of 3.93 million tonnes, which is almost equal to the 3.98 million tonnes deficit recorded during the 2012/13 marketing year (Table 3 & 4)
♦ Compared to 2012 harvest, all countries except Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe experienced increases in cereal production (Table 1).
♦ The current national and household level food security situation has improved in many parts of the Region due to the coming in of the newly harvested crop from the 2012/13 agricultural season.
♦ Although staple food prices are beginning to show a declining trend in many parts of the Region, they still remain higher than those at the same time last season and the last 5 year average food prices (Figure 2).
♦ The 2013 Regional vulnerability assessments indicate that the number of the food insecure population is up 19% from about 12 million last year to about 14 million this year (Table 2).
