There has been eight years of drought in the last ten years in Daikundi Province. This has been due to significant decreases in precipitation, both winter snow and spring rains. This year’s drought has been more severe than previous years. In many areas, snow was limited, there were no spring rains and rivers were dry by early June.

The 2006 drought has severely reduced the productivity of the rainfed crop land (lalmi), grazing lands, as well as access to water for irrigation. In the most severely affected valley, farmers estimate that the harvest this year from irrigated land has been halved. There is no lalmi harvest. This has reduced food self-sufficiency from about six months per year to three months this year. Livestock will be severely affected as there will be limited fodder for the livestock over the five month winter period. In many communities, the village wells dried up by June, forcing women and children to spend up to six hours each day to fetch water from distant sources, such as mountain springs. Furthermore, the population has increased markedly since 2001. [NGO] staff estimate that there has been an approximately 20% increase in population with repatriation of refugees from Iran and return of displaced persons.

There are forty villages in [x district] that are severely affected by the drought. ( More details... )