Cyclone Survivors May Have To Grow Their Own Food (Burma)

New Scientist ^ | 5-9-2008 | Debora MacKenzie

[blam]

Cyclone survivors may have to grow their own food

18:15 09 May 2008
Debora MacKenzie

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation is calling for $10 million in emergency farming equipment and seeds for parts of southern Burma devastated by Cyclone Nargis, to help plant the next rice crop. Meanwhile the UN's World Food Programme has stopped emergency food shipments to the disaster zone after the country's military dictators impounded the first shipment on arrival.

Cyclone Nargis, which hit southern Burma last Saturday, devastated the delta of the Irawaddy River, the country's main rice growing region. Up to 100,000 may have been killed, and hundreds of thousands are homeless.

The WFP has said it will not deliver emergency relief unless it can supervise its distribution to ensure it reaches those most in need. The Burmese government, which violently suppressed popular protests of high food and fuel prices last September, is insisting on distributing foreign aid itself. Opposition campaigners fear the junta will give the aid preferentially to its supporters.

Burma's people are among Asia's poorest, and dependent on rice as a staple food. People in Asia on average consume 7 kilograms of rice per month, getting the rest of their nutrition from other foods. The Burmese eat on average 20 kg of rice a month, yet recent surveys found a third of children are malnourished, a third of those severely.

No harvest

The FAO says the storm washed away rice stores from the recent harvest, on which the many subsistence farmers depend. It warns that Burma is due to get its next crop in when monsoon rains start in June, but people have no equipment to do it.

"The hardest-hit villages lost all their farming assets, as well as the food stored for the rest of the year,"

[Ratblaster]

Rangoon,Louisiana.

[blam]

Burma cyclone was forecast four days in advance

17:25 09 May 2008
NewScientist.com news service
Fred Pearce

Four wasted days? The image, is a forecast map of the likely track of Cyclone Nargis in the Bay of Bengal, issued by meteorologists four days before it made landfall in Burma last weekend.

Produced by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts in Reading, UK, it was distributed to the world's national meteorological stations, including the Burmese weather watchers. It accurately predicted that the storm would cross the low-lying Irrawaddy delta before ripping through the Burmese capital, Rangoon.

But all the evidence is that the warning failed to reach the millions of people in its path. Latest reports suggest that the death toll from the storm and accompanying tidal wave could top 100,000.

[wastedyears]

“We have to grow our own food? America! America, we need you! We love you America!”

Shove it, Burma

[2ndDivisionVet]

“Ban Ki-moon hates brown people!” /s

[bobby.223]

shove it is right.

[blam]

Before And After Satellite Photo.

[Krankor]

Well, the “before” picture looks like a big foot.

[doc1019]

As an agrarian county, were they not growing their own food before this disaster?

[blam]

Chindits

Chindits Photo Gallery

[gunservative]

Somewhere, a UN flunky is flying cash to his Swiss bank account.

[rontorr]

you obviouly paid no attention to the part that says theirfilds and storage warehouses were wiped out and their farming equipment is also gone, shove it up your own

[CarrotAndStick]

“We have to grow our own food? America! America, we need you! We love you America!”

The government there has actively refused American aid. Did you miss that part?

[rontorr]

were they not growing their own food before this disaster?.......

Yes they were, but it will probably take them a couple of years to get back to normal, the area that was most affected was their primary rice growing area, and remember, this was salt water flooding from the storm surge, not flooding due to rain, and most plants dont like salty water, it gives rice plants high blood pressure sarc

[MediaMole]

We need to donate a few BLU-82s to the junta — direct aid. Then we can help the people who have been harmed by the cyclone.

[doc1019]

Thanks for the information.

[CarrotAndStick]

Or just cut the chase and go to the mother of all this- China.

Oh, that’s right, it’s too late for that now.

[wastedyears]

I guess I forgot the /s tag.