Senegal has embarked on the development of a national strategy for food sovereignty by 2024, at a total cost of 8.1 billion dollars (4,808 billion cfa francs) over five years.
Thanks to the sustained efforts of the Senegalese government, cereal production will increase from 1,502,517 tons to 3,663,690 tons between 2011 and 2022, an increase of 144%.
During the same period, peanut production increased by 30% and fruit and vegetable production by 128%.
According to Prime Minister Amadou Ba, who chaired an inter-ministerial council on 27 April to prepare for the 2023-2024 agricultural season, these significant developments are due to the increase in yields and cultivated areas, but also and above all to the efforts made by the state, particularly during the agricultural seasons, through the subsidization of inputs and agricultural equipment.
However, there is still a long way to go to ensure food security for all Senegalese.
“In Senegal, data from the March 2023 Harmonized Framework show that 1.2 million people, or 7% of the population, are in a situation of food and nutritional vulnerability,” Mohamadou Lamine Dia, technical advisor to the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Equipment and Food Sovereignty (MAERSA), said in Dakar on Tuesday.
Mr. Dia opened an annual consultation with national food crisis response mechanisms and the international humanitarian community.
The two-day meeting is organized by the Regional Agency for Agriculture and Food (ARAA) of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
According to the MAERSA technical advisor, the H5N1 pandemic, the Russian-Ukrainian war and insecurity in the sub-region, all of which have increased the food vulnerability of the population, have led “Senegal to take decisive action to strengthen its food sovereignty”.
Against this backdrop he said, “our country has begun to formulate its National Strategy for Consensual Food Sovereignty (…) to ensure that the population has access to sufficient and quality food”.
Alain Sy Traoré, Director of Agriculture and Rural Development at the ECOWAS Commission, diagnosed food insecurity affecting more than 42 million people in West Africa.
Among the causes, he cited “insecurity linked to terrorism and other forms of banditry, exceptional climatic phenomena in a context of faster climate change than scientists had predicted, and the volatility of commodity prices fueled by geopolitical changes and global conflicts.”
“The instability of international prices is largely linked to the importation of many food products, and this increases the already high instability of our own domestic markets. This has a direct impact on the purchasing power of households, especially poor households, which are now concentrated in urban areas,” added Alain Sy Traoré.
To reverse this trend, he called on West African countries to “act simultaneously and collectively” by strengthening household resilience, implementing very long-term agricultural development strategies, and restoring peace and security.
TE/lb/as/APA