Maya Lama, a resident of Humla in western Nepal, says the district has not seen a plane laden with food stocks come for days now. ''Last year's grain is finished. This year's hasn't been planted, yet,'' Lama said.

In Humla, it is not unusual to see long queues at food corporation depots at the district headquarters for coupons to obtain subsidised food. The local produce of potato, barley, buckwheat barely last a few months.

Humla is one of the communities in this Himalayan kingdom whose people are increasingly worried their daily lives, amid the suspension of flights of subsidised food and scaling down of international food aid schemes due to security concerns about attacks by Maoist rebels.

Now, even in terrace fields that should have begun cropping, land lies fallow as many have fled their villagers owing to the general sense of insecurity. Of those who remain, many do not have the manpower to farm, or have eaten the seeds.

Others may not have planted this season's crop since they think the insurgents will take it away.

Even before the six-and-a half year old Maoist insurgency intensified in recent months, 39 of Nepal's 75 districts, most of them in the country's mid-west, were already suffering from chronic food shortages.

But the fear of war — major attacks by Maoist guerrillas have been reported in remote areas — has made life much more uncertain these days.

At the same time, the structural problems of Nepal's agriculture — an inefficient and unbalanced production and distribution system, better physical access to food and markets, increased production, shifting government policies — persist.

Combination of factors

Experts say that the combination of these factors — armed conflict and hunger — means that Nepal may well be moving toward having one of the most serious food crises in South Asia.

"When farmers are caught in the crossfire, agriculture doesn't wait for another season,'' R B Singh, Asia-Pacific representative for the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), said at last week's regional preparatory meeting for the World Food Summit to be held in Rome next month.

''And in a country like Nepal which has shown a substantial increase in malnourished people, there's a need to manage conflict, create peace, and never to compromise with resources deployment for agriculture development and the political will to carry it forward,'' he explained.

Nepal's food production has in fact been increasing in recent years, due to monsoons and improved services. But widespread poverty and slow food production, which is not keeping pace with the growing population of this country of 23.5 million people, are the reasons for hunger.

According to FAO statistics, Nepalis, in terms of proportions of the undernourished, are the hungriest people in South Asia.

v Ten years ago, there were 3.5 million underfed people in Nepal, 19 percent of the population. Today that number is five million, 19 percent of the population, says FAO's latest global food security survey.

The crisis of food security in the world's mountain regions, including countries like Nepal, was discussed at the regional FAO meeting here in the Nepali capital, and will be discussed in Rome as well.

Wracked by conflict

Chronically food-deficit hilly regions, like Nepal, are being wracked by conflict and this is worsening a food situation that is already bad, FAO Director General Jacques Diouf says.

"The increase in household food insecurity is worrying. Food is available, but in many areas there are problems of access and affordability, important aspects in ensuring food security," said Gyan Prasad Sharma, an agricultural economist at the National Planning Commission.

Once a food exporting country, Nepal now imports 6 billion rupees (76.6 million US dollars) worth of grain and other foodstuffs every year.

People still go hungry in many cash-deficit districts, where food is most needed, because people do not have the money to buy it with, or due to transportation and distribution problems.

"What's missing is a synergy between government, NGOs and private institutions to increase food security," said Tek Bahadur Thapa, regional director of the Department of Agriculture for the central region. "Now the security situation has made matters worse."

The Maoist conflict has already affected food flights to the mid and far western districts.

Food suspended

Last month, the United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) suspended its food for work programme in the two western districts of Mugu and Jajarkot after Maoists looted stores. Some 15,000 people working on a road in exchange for food have been directly affected.

"The implications are most unfortunate," said Basant Raj Gautam, programme manager of the Rural Community Infrastructure Works under the Ministry of Local Development. "In Jajarkot, at least 10,000 people have lost their source for food for sixty to ninety days. And this is the time when there is nothing growing in the fields."

The food agency stopped flying subsidised food to remote village depots in Mugu last year owing to the security situation. The suspension has affected at least 5,000 residents.

"Not a grain of rice has been flown into the villages since last year," explained Mugu MP Chandra Bahadur Shahi. "But the numbers of consumers have gone up — police, security forces, the Maoists."

The district's quota of 3,000 quintals of rice has been delivered to the district headquarters. But since three bridges connecting the villages to the district headquarters have been destroyed, people cannot collect rice — unless they swim or go through areas where the Maoists are active. "People are foraging for roots and tubers," said Shahi.

Though there are reports of cooperative farming being carried out in no-go Maoist strongholds, some are sceptical. "When they are so busy fighting a war, how can they tend to farms?'' asked Tulsi Gautam of the Agriculture Department Market Development directorate.