Fears for food security in Fiji as new crops washed away

Transcript

UN officials in Suva say food security in Fiji is worrying after new crops planted after Cyclone Winston were washed away in this week's floods.

Many newly planted crops were drowned in the deluges brought by tropical depressions this week.
 
Sune Gudnitz heads the Pacific branch of the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

He told Sally Round providing sanitation, shelter and food security continue to be priorities.

SUNE GUDNITZ: Food security, unfortunately, remains an issue nonetheless because what has happened in the last couple of weeks, or couple of days, is that a lot of the recovery seed planting from TC Winston has been washed away. So the investment that was made to get food security back on in the course of a short amount of time to get crops to come back, that we can now start over. We don't have a clear overview, but it's very clear that things that have been planted in the last five to seven weeks, a lot of it has been washed away.

SALLY ROUND: So does that mean that people, are they going to be relying on rations for longer?

SG: My assumption would be, and I don't have any assessment data to back this up, but my assumption would be that it will push out the timeline for achieving food security in affected areas. Whether the response to that is food distributions I cannot say because that's a decision I think they need to make in the government, but also based on assessments, but that could be one result.

SR: So pretty worrying then.

SG: I would say so and I think the sunshine story of TC Zena almost dissipating as quickly as it come around, that's wonderful because I think nobody was in the mood for another disaster response, but we shouldn't forget that there are still associated needs with the heavy rainfall that came ahead of Zena and also the fact that Zena produced rain here. So I would say it's not as great as it could have been because the tropical depressions this week and Zena itself impacted areas already very vulnerable from TC Winston.