There is not a good forecast for the south part of Africa. Lesotho, Namibia, Madagascar, South Africa and Swaziland are expected to receive normal to below-normal rain in the season that goes from October to December, according to the Drought Monitoring Centre of The Southern African Development Community (SADC).

If this happens, there will be less production in countries that had poor harvest last year, said an analysis of the forecast by Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources (FANR) directorate of SADC.

Lesotho and Swaziland are still recovering from one of their worst ever droughts in 2007, which left several hundred thousand in need of food aid. Southern Angola recorded poor harvests in 2007 and production in Namibia was down by four percent last season.

    SADC-FANR warned that the situation was more critical in areas where poor rainfall in the first half of the season was likely to be followed by a "normal to below normal rainfall" in the second half of the season, from January 2009 to the end of March 2009. Meteorologists say the climate outlook for SADC region seems to be in a neutral phase, emerging from a La Niña cycle, which has had a "wet impact", perhaps towards a drier phase. La Niña is characterized by unusually cold ocean temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, recorded every three to four years, which have a ripple effect across the globe, making wet regions wetter and dry ones drier.