Ebola's impact on food security in West Africa: a new EC report

A recent report Impact of the West African Ebola virus disease outbreak on food security from the EC's Joint Research Centre, published in December 2014, considers that the 2014 Ebola outbreak has had significant adverse effects on food security in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, the countries most affected. Despite these adverse effects on food security, food availability is not expected to be significantly reduced on average compared to a normal year. Overall production in affected countries is expected to decline slightly, essentially because of labour shortages. In addition, all borders other than the Guinea-Senegal border had been re-opened by the end of November 2014. Food imports may thus resume and food availability may improve starting December 2014. However, areas that have been severely hit by the outbreak may face serious food availability issues, especially at the start of 2015 when food stocks from the current harvest will be exhausted. This is the case of N’zérékore in Guinea, Lofa and Margibi in Liberia, and Kailahun and Kanema in Sierra Leone, where rice harvests are well below average and movements are still restricted.