Act now to avert food crises in India’s North East: ActionAid

Mizoram on the brink of famine – crops destroyed as bamboo flowering fuels explosion in rodent population

6 March, New Delhi: Nearly 100,000 people are going hungry as a largely unreported crisis unfolds in the state of Mizoram in India’s North East region following bamboo flowering, a phenomena that occurs here once every 48 years.

The flowering of bamboo groves triggers a massive explosion of rodent population as they feast on bamboo flower seeds. These rodents have wreaked havoc by causing a wide spread destruction of crops.

An ActionAid emergency assessment team has just returned from some of the worst-hit districts and is calling on government agencies to intervene immediately with food aid and livelihood support.

Remote communities who survive on slash and burn agriculture have seen entire fields of rice, maize and vegetables vanish overnight.

“All our crops were eaten by the rats. We couldn’t save anything,” says Binondo, who lives with his eight family members in Bawngva village, Mamit district.

Distress sales of land and property are being reported across the state as farmers exhaust their reserves.

“In a normal harvest we get about 600 tins of grain (roughly 10 kilos per tin). This year we could harvest only 20 tins. We are out of food. We don’t know what to do,” says Lalrosiama, secretary of the Bawngva Village Council who lives his family of seven and has sold their four-hectare plot for just 6,000 rupees. In normal times the land would have fetched over Rs 100,000.

The State estimates an additional 5,740 metric tones of rice will be needed over the next two months to feed those going hungry.

The Mizoram State Government declared the area disaster-affected over two months back, (December 2007) and issued an appeal for aid from the Central Government. But the National Calamity Contingency Fund allocation of Rs 88.1 million falls way short of relief requirements.

An assessment by ActionAid indicates that food aid is urgently required for at least 10,000 families across 200 villages who are struggling to get one meal a day. Many are surviving by foraging in the forests for roots and herbs.

In Poithar village in the Lawngtlai District, J Rochunga, a man from the Lai community says: “People do not have food for tomorrow. We are afraid to plant anything because the rats consume everything, even cash crops like oranges and vegetables like pumpkins and chilies.”

“During the 1950s Mautam (bamboo flowering), forest food was available but this time there is much less. Humans and rats are fighting over what little there is. Some of us are eating bamboo seeds,” he adds.

The situation is worse in inaccessible southern areas of Mizoram, Lawngtlai and Saiha are two of the hardest-hit districts, bordering Myanmar (Burma) and Bangladesh. Desperate measures like a bounty of Rs1 per rat tail have failed to curb the rodent population.

“Tight-knit support systems are crumbling as communities do not have enough resources to tide through a famine-like situation. The young, women and elderly are having the most difficult time. We are hearing reports of onset of blindness due to lack of food,” says Mrinal Gohain, ActionAid regional manager, North East.

“The national and international community must intervene to prevent starvation deaths in Mizoram,” he adds.

ActionAid’s emergency response team is gathering information on needs in the most inaccessible areas and is preparing to deliver food to a handful of the worst affected hamlets. The agency is appealing for funds to reach more people who are desperately short of food.

ENDS.

Notes to editor:

Highlights of the Situational Assessment Report by ActionAid and Centre for Peace and Development, Mizoram(February 2008)

ActionAid is an international anti-poverty agency working in over 40 countries, taking sides with poor people to end poverty and injustice together. In India, ActionAid works with communities in 24 states and two Union Territories.