Addis Ababa — The United Nations World Food Programme on Friday urgently appealed for 205 million dollars to provide relief food to millions of drought-affected Ethiopians for a further year.

Under its extended operation, the Agency will require 480,000 metric tons of food aid to cover the needs of 4.6 million people until March 2004 - and avoid a potential break in food supplies in August.

WFP has been scaling up its relief distributions and feeding 4.4 million people since last year, when inadequate and poorly dispersed rain greatly reduced Ethiopia's food production bringing the very real risk of large-scale starvation.

In total, up to 11.3 million rural Ethiopians currently rely on a continued flow of international relief assistance for survival.

Those not covered by the WFP emergency operation will receive food aid through donations to the Ethiopian Government's Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission (DPPC) and to non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

"As we inch closer to July and the start of the 'hungry season', it is crucial that food aid reaches farmers and their families who are set to exhaust their food reserves," said Georgia Shaver, WFP Country Representative in Ethiopia. "These people's survival will hinge on food aid arriving not only quickly, but in sufficient quantities."

So far, donors have provided more than 70 percent of the total 1.4 million tonnes of food aid that Ethiopia requires for 2003. But, without the 300,000 tonnes still needed to feed drought-affected farmers for the remainder of the year, WFP fears there will be a break in supplies in August.

Over 130,000 tonnes of food aid were dispatched for 10 million Ethiopians in March, but the risk of food stocks running out within a few months saw the monthly cereal ration cut from the normal 15 kilograms per person to 12.5 kg.

While the stretching of available food stocks allows more people to be reached, the reduction in ration size can lead to unacceptably low levels of family food supplies.

WFP is also extremely concerned about the insufficient availability of nutritious fortified blended foods to assist malnourished children and mothers. To date, Ethiopia has received little more than 50 percent of the almost 128,000 tonnes of blended food stipulated for programmes run by WFP, DPPC and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in 2003.