Source: Government of Nepal, World Food Programme
Country: Nepal
HIGHLIGHTS AND SITUATION SUMMARY
This issue covers the period of mid-July to mid-November 2013, the first trimester of Nepalese Fiscal Year 2070/71. This bulletin is based primarily on the outcomes of NeKSAP district food security network (DFSN) meetings held in 72 of 75 districts and the results of the NeKSAP household survey, a nationally representative sample survey, collected between July-October 2013.
In this period:
- Most parts of the country were classified as minimally food insecure, a situation where households can secure food and non-food needs without changing livelihood strategies. The situation in this period has improved significantly compared to April-June 2013 when 145 VDCs were classified as food insecure (134 moderately food insecure and 11 highly food insecure).
- Six Village Development Committees (VDCs) of Jumla were classified as moderately food insecure, a situation where households are able to meet minimal food needs with traditional coping strategies, but are unable to afford some essential non-food expenditures without engaging in irreversible coping strategies.
- Sale of agricultural products (including livestock), daily wages, and remittances were major sources of income that contributed to improved household food security. Compared to April-June 2013, the share of remittances in household income increased while that of daily wages fell. Nepal Rastra Bank estimated remittance inflow at 178.89 billion NPR (USD 1.8 billion).
- According to the NeKSAP household survey, 84.1 percent of households had adequate food consumption. Average house-hold cereal stock was 255 kg, which provides roughly 3.3 months of food sufficiency for an average household.
- There were no major disasters affecting the food security situation. Rainfall was normal except for some districts in the eastern Terai. Nevertheless, some areas observed local climatic events like hailstones, floods, landslides, and dry spells. Their effect was observed on acreage and production loss of paddy but not on overall food availability and access.
- According to Nepal Rastra Bank, the year-on-year Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased by 10 percent in November 2013 compared to an increase of 10.5 percent in the corresponding period last year. The vegetable sub-group observed the largest increase of 35.3 percent in November 2013 compared to 3.5 percent in the same period last year.
- It should be noted that July-August is traditionally an agricultural lean season and a seasonal deterioration in the food security situa-tion is expected; however, with the start of the maize and paddy harvest from September-October onwards, and in the absence of any significant shocks, the food security situation usually improves. As such, the results presented should be interpreted accordingly.