Food security in Eritrea Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Food security in Eritrea - Essay Example Eritrea is a sovereign state, which has been faced with numerous cases of conflict within itself and with its neighbours, especially Ethiopia, due to border demarcation issues, a factor which has resulted to internal displacement of people. Reports indicate that more than 10000 out of the original 70000 internally displaced persons still live in temporary camps, waiting to be resettled by the government (Tesfa, 2008). Apparently, this has been one of the major factors contributing to food shortages due to the fact that these people have no cultivatable land as the war pushed them out of their homes and as such, they can only depend on aid from well wishers and the government. It is estimated that more than 2 million people are affected by food insecurity, translating to approximately 40% of the total population (Tesfa, 2008). The fight for freedom, which lasted for approximately 30 years, left the country in a state of destruction especially in the agricultural sector. This is due to the fact that most of the lands which could be used for farming are littered with unexploded ordinances, which pose a security hazard to the farmers (Rena, 2007). In this context, any person trying to cultivate in these lands risks the possibility of triggering the explosion of land mines, which were buried during the war, but failed to explode. Tensions that continue to exist between Ethiopia and Eritrea have contributed to more installation of these landmines as a defensive mechanism at the expense of the farming communities (Zwi, 2005). The temporary security zone, which is considered to have been the most productive agricultural land measuring approximately 25km2 remains unutilized as a result of these landmines, which have kept away more than 50000 inhabitants, who were displaced by the war, regardless of the fact that n o more fighting takes place in this area (Zwi, 2005). With these developments, food production is deemed to remain low and as such, more people will continue to be affected by extreme hunger. This is also due to the fact that the government has continued to spend a lot of the already scarce resources to finance and facilitate the war with Ethiopia. For instance, it is estimated that more than 300 000 men and women are serving in the army instead of letting them engage in farming activities (Gebre, 2009). Human resource in the agricultural sector is a crucial necessity since activities such as cultivation, planting, and weeding as well as harvesting among others requires to be done in order to guarantee quality harvest. In Eritrea, this has not been the case as it has been observed that there have been limited human resources hence high labour costs. As earlier stated, poor diplomatic relations between the country and its neighbours, i.e. Ethiopia and Sudan, have led to the closure o f the respective borders. This means that no movement is allowed in and from the country, which has continued to impact the economy negatively. It is true to say that if this was not the case, citizens of these nations would have had a chance to interact economically through trading in imports and exports thereby increasing the amount of foreign exchange as well as revenue collected