LOKE, Ethiopia — Standing amidst a group of scrawny fellow Ethiopian farmers, Tuke Shika points to the scorching sun when asked why his food reserves have dwindled this year.

“The weather has changed, it’s not as it used to be before,” he laments. “The rains are increasingly erratic, and we are getting less and less yields.”

In Loke, 350 kilometres (215 miles) south of Addis Ababa, massive expanses of land that were once lush with healthy maize stalks are now replaced with burnt out twigs, despite rains recently flushing the sun-blasted district.

With his food silos diminishing by half from the 50 quintals of maize he reaped last year, Tuke is one of the more than 2,000 people in the area facing food shortages.
“People here are suffering with their livestock dying, and more and more children succumbing to malnutrition,” he adds.

Read more … (Reliefweb/AFP)