Page last updated at 07:23 GMT, Thursday, 22 October 2009 08:23 UK

Farmers struggling with drought in Ethiopia

In October 1984, the BBC brought the rapidly worsening scale of famine in Ethiopia to public attention.

As the BBC's Mike Wooldridge discovers on his return to the country, today Ethiopia remains a land where hunger is never far away.

Prolonged drought and erratic rainfall are causing severe crop failure in some parts of the country and the Ethiopian government is appealing for emergency food aid for 6.2 million people.

One farmer in Wolayta district in hardest-hit southern Ethiopia, Yangago Bunja, describes what the total loss of his maize crop means for his family.


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