The Federal Government has provided more than 200 thousands bales of animal fodder to areas hit by the drought in Oromia, Somali, and SNNP, the National Disaster Risk Management Commission said.
Public Relation Directorate Director with the Commission, Debebe Zewde, told WIC that as the drought is significantly affecting animals dwelling in pastoral and dry areas of these regions the fodder is aimed at filling the gap farmers are facing due to the drought that has engulfed the horn of Africa, including Ethiopia.
Lately, the commission also has provided 100 thousand more bales of animal fodder to the Somali Regional State to abate the shortage in pastoral and dry areas highly hit by the drought.
As price of the fodder is expensive even as compared to that of the cattle in the drought hit areas, due emphasis is given to the bull calf, heifers, and cows, he underscored.
An another option to fill this gap, the respective regional states are feeding cattle with grass from inside the national parks and a temporary command post is established in each of them to specifically address the problem, Debebe said.
The regional states are lobby pastoralists and other farmers dwelling in dry areas to feed their animals in such situations and fill the food security gap.
Grass seeds that can grow in not more than 45 days are being sown in such pastoral and dry areas to further address the problem in the short run, he noted.
Drawing important lessons from last year’s drought and scaling them up as effective preventive mechanisms , the Afar State has planted animal fodder over 700 thousand hectares of land to adequately address the problem, he said.
The government so far has allocated 47 million USD to the operation to contain effects of the drought in the first round. Even if Ethiopia has officially declared that 5.6 million people are in need of food aid due to this year’s drought and it needs about 715 million USD to address the challenges it poses, the first foreign aid is yet to arrive to the country, he disclosed.