With the lean season approaching, regional food security conditions remain mixed with stable conditions prevailing over most parts of the region where harvests were good, but fragile in localized food insecure areas. Of major concern are the poor households who cannot access adequate food despite most local markets being adequately stocked with staple foods. Due to own production failures, these households have turned to market purchases much earlier than normal, have already stretched their coping capacities, and will be requiring external assistance.
A number of national vulnerability assessment committees (VAC) have revised their initial assessment findings for the peak lean season due to better in-country food security conditions than previously projected. The Mozambique VAC (SETSAN) has reduced the number of people in need of food assistance at the peak lean season from 456,000 people to 350,000 (a decrease of 23 percent). In Zimbabwe, recent food security analysis updates indicate a significant narrowing of the projected cereal gap from 385,000 MT in May to 111,000 MT - a 71 percent reduction.
The 2010/11 rainfall season is yet to commence for most areas in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) as the season generally starts in November. While by the end of October most of the SADC region had not yet experienced a substantive start of rainfall season, a number of countries have organized input support programs to assist poor households especially in affected areas. The high cost of agricultural inputs in Zimbabwe remains a serious concern as there are fears that farmers might fail to access the costly inputs and therefore lose out on the benefits from the predicted favorable rains.