The Senior Minister and Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Adjoumani Kouassi Kobenan, presented on Wednesday, May 10, 2023 the “Place of organic agriculture in the food security policy in Cote d’Ivoire” before the Economic, Social, Environmental and Cultural Council (CESEC).
According to Adjoumani Kouassi Kobenan, “we note that from January to March 2023, 83 percent of the population is in food security. The slight decline compared to 2018 is due to the effects of the
Russian-Ukrainian crisis.”
He noted that at the onset of this crisis, it was difficult to access production inputs, much of which is imported. All this has led to a decline in food production in 2021 of about 0.6 percenr.
“This figure challenges us (and) shows that a slight decline in food production is very costly, in terms of food security,” he said Food security remains an issue of economic and social development of the country.
According to statistics from the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FIBL), the certified organic area cultivated in 2021 is 78,783 hectares, an increase in organic area of 55.8 percent compared to those recorded in 2017.
However, the supply is struggling to take off, as it represents to date, less than 0.1 percent of national production, said Adjoumani. Some private initiatives have developed in crops such as cocoa, with 13 cooperatives that produced 1,005, 311 tons of organic cocoa during the 2021-2022 campaign.
For the Minister of State, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, “unlike food security, the concept of food self-sufficiency is not really secure for a country, in that it does not guarantee stability over time.”
“For example, Côte d’Ivoire banned rice imports in 1977, thinking it would achieve food self-sufficiency. The following year, it was forced to return to imports to cover its needs, thereby undermining the entire rice production policy,” he said.
“With the steady increase in food production observed since 2014, following the implementation of the National Agricultural Investment Program of the second generation (PNIA 1) and PENIA 2, we note that overall 89 percent of the population has moved to a food security situation in 2018,” he said.
During the PNIA 1, our strategy was to provide farm households with the means of production needed to boost the growth of food production, namely seeds, fertilizers, materials and production tools, but also
the development of land, he noted.
This has led to an increase in food production of about 48 percent, from 11,886,535 tons in 2012 to 17,600,099 tons in 2017, he continued. With the NAIP 2 implemented since 2018, the Ivorian government is working to deploy nine ‘agropoles’, for an irrigated, mechanized and environmentally friendly agriculture.
This strategy has, moreover, allowed to record in 2022, satisfactory results, including the progression of the primary sector with 5.1 percent compared to its level of 2021, and the progression of the production of cereals to the tune of 3.5 percent, as well as that of tubers and other 4.8 percent, he explained.
AP/fss/abj/APA