Speaking on Thursday at a meeting of the Consultative Council of the Food and Nutritional Security Technical Secretariat (SETSAN), Chaquisse said that food shortages currently affect 450,000 Mozambicans

"This situation of food insecurity has caused 103 deaths", he said. The provinces with the worst pockets of hunger are Gaza and Maputo in the south of the country, Tete and Zambezia in the centre, and Nampula in the north.

"One of the reasons for this insecurity is the lack of food reserves", said Chaquisse. Other factors included prolonged droughts in parts of the country, and the floods that hit the Zambezi Valley in early 2007 and again in 2008.

To assist households facing hunger, SETSAN is working with the country's relief agency, The National Disasters Management Institute (INGC) to provide food aid to those in need.

Apart from the current drive to raise agricultural production, the government is also committed to setting up food reserve silos in the most productive provinces. In the longer term the authorities intend to provide a monetary subsidy to poor households who live in food surplus areas, but have no money to buy food.

"Currently we are finalising the legal procedures for the monetary transfers, which will be managed by SETSAN", said Chaquisse. SETSAN has recommended that the government needs to provide money for transfers to 94,000 people.

Speaking of food insecurity internationally, Maria Zimmerman, the Maputo representative of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warned that the current situation threatens to make it impossible to meet one of the key Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) - that of halving the number of people suffering from hunger between 1990 and 2015.

One key factor has been the rise in food prices, obliging poor households to spend the greater part of their income on acquiring food. According to Zimmerman, despite recent falls in food prices, the costs remain high for most vulnerable households. Thus in Mozambique, the price of a tonne of maize last September was 170 dollars higher than in 2005.

She pointed out that the main beneficiaries of high food prices were farmers in the developed world. But peasant farmers in Africa had been unable to seize this business opportunity.

"The price of maize in Maputo, for example, has gone up by ten per cent, but the farmer in Mossurize, or in any other Mozambican district doesn't know that the price has gone up", Zimmerman said.(all africa)