Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 25 October 2022

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence

Global Food Crisis: Discussion (Resumed)

Mr. Dominic Crowley:

I thank Deputy Clarke for her questions. If I said there are five wells, I meant to say there are four. Apparently, there are only four usable wells in Baidoa. That is for a combination of reasons. The wells tap into the aquifer and the aquifer is not being replenished because the rains are not coming. The Deputy heard that we have had four and a half failed rains, which we expect to become five, and that there has been no opportunity for the aquifer to be replenished. As a result, there is no water to tap into. The second aspect is the sheer volume of population. You cannot increase the population of an area by 150% and expect scarce resources to spread widely enough to meet the extra demand. It is a combination of those two factors.