Food Needs News

Qatar and container lines have launched new shipping services via Oman in an effort to sidestep a port ban in neighbouring countries and secure a food lifeline after other Gulf states severed ties with Doha last week. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and some other Arab countries cut diplomatic, travel and trade ties with Qatar last week, accusing it of supporting Iran and funding Islamist groups, accusations Doha denies. The severing of air, sea and land transport links has closed crucial import routes for Qatar and its population of around 2.7 million people who are dependent on imports for most of their food needs. China's COSCO Shipping Lines Co Ltd, Taiwan's Evergreen and Hong Kong Kong's OOCL have suspended container services to and from Qatar.

A ship carrying enough U.N. food aid to feed 180,000 people for a month docked at the Yemeni port of Aden on Tuesday, having waited for almost four weeks, a World Food Programme spokesman said. Aden and the other southern provinces of Yemen have been largely inaccessible to U.N. food aid, and around 13 million people - over half the population - are thought to be in a situation of "critical" or "emergency" food insecurity. "It's the first WFP chartered ship to berth in the port since the conflict erupted in late March," spokesman Peter Smerdon said. Last week WFP negotiated the entry of a convoy of food trucks into Aden province, but said docking a ship was impossible because of fighting raging around the port area.

A potential El Nino weather phenomenon, which could wreak havoc on global crops, is set to disrupt shipping patterns and raise freight costs, leaving suppliers and importers to cover their food needs from longer-haul destinations. El Nino, a warming of sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific, can trigger floods and drought in different regions, hitting production of key foods such as rice, wheat and sugar. Weather forecasters are increasingly predicting it will return in 2014 for the first time in five years.