Philippe Conraud, Oxfam country director in Mali, said if the traders did not return soon, it could become "very difficult for people to getenoughfood to feed their families".
But within those numbers, the Agriculture Department believes that there are about half a million to a million children who in fact do during the course of the year have to miss meals and don't getenough nutritious food.
But pharmaceutical companies get far fewer years of sales than that because it can take eight years or more after invention to accumulate enough data to get a drug past the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
That pays the electricity bill and buys water and food for her 12 family members, but it isn't enough to get them a decent home away from the smelly, sooty refuse.