A recent report by the charity Action Against Hunger (AAH) has revealed disturbing levels of malnutrition in western Chad. Malnutrition has long been present in this area, but the situation has become acute in recent years because of poor rainy seasons in 2008 and 2009 (in both cases the rains arrived late and were fitful). At one point more than 2m people were at risk of hunger in Chad, but a good rainy season in 2010, as well as timely interventions from aid agencies, seem to have staved off the worst effects of the latest drought.

The AAH report conducted long-term research into pastoralist communities in western Chad (Kanem region) and found that large numbers no longer make a livelihood from herding animals. The report estimates that around 30% of the region's livestock herds were decimated in the last harsh dry season. In many cases where pastoralism has been abandoned in favour of sedentary agriculture, this has not been as successful as it could have been owing to problems such as a lack of irrigation, grain storage facilities, roads, electricity supply and labour (this last factor being the result of rural-urban migration and displacement as a result of the civil conflict).

Although conditions for pastoralists, based mainly in the north of the country, have remained challenging, and arable farming remains well below potential, a strong performance is expected from cereals. A US government aid agency, Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNet), expects total cereal output of 2.6m tonnes in for the 2010/11 harvest, a 10-year record. However, FEWSNet warned in a recent bulletin that food security was nonetheless set to decline in the run-up to the rainy season harvest, which begins in September-October.