Aid agencies estimate 500,000 people in Burkina Faso are still facing food shortages after crops were ravaged by drought and locusts that also struck neighbouring Niger -- the worst-hit country in West Africa -- as well as Mali and Mauritania.

"People were eating leaves and even the grains we feed to animals," farmer and village official Amadou Sambo said last week.

"Many families at times went through a week without cooking. It was really difficult for us but it is getting better now."

Although Burkina Faso is not facing a crisis on the scale of Niger -- where 3.6 million people are short of food -- relief workers say food shortages are lingering in the north, mainly in the Oudalan province, which borders Mali and Niger.

Deou, about 400 kms (250 miles) north of the capital Ouagadougou, lost more than 90 percent of last year's harvest.

The region is so remote that aid trucks had difficulty getting through. Market prices for staple foods rocketed and many could not afford to buy basic grains.

But since rains started at the end of June, things have been slowly getting better.

"Now we can actually get wild fonio and fresh corn," farmer Segbo Yacouba said.

"Now that there is a lot of grass, the cattle are eating well and we have milk so we are no longer complaining."

Prices of the staples millet and sorghum are starting to fall too. In June, a 100 kg bag of millet cost up to 35,000 CFA francs ($66). It has fallen to about 22,000 CFA francs since, but officials say the prices are still too high.

Unlike Niger, the government has not appealed for aid, instead asking local organisations to help.

In Deou, it sells emergency food stocks cheaply, to keep market prices low.