Operation launched to induce rain

Hard hit by insufficient rainfall, Burkina Faso launched on Tuesday "Operation Saaga" in which it is using two planes to drop chemicals into the clouds to induce rain. "Saaga" means rain in local languages.

Lack of rainfall this year has been "frightening and worrying", Minister of Agriculture and Water Resources Salif Diallo said at the launching of the operation in the capital, Ouagadougou. Since April the situation had gotten worse, he added.

Some of the worst hit areas included the central Plateau and northern Yatenga regions. Since the start of the year, Ouagadougou in Plateau and Ouahigouya in Yatenga, had respectively received 85 and 53.2 mm of rain. As a result Ouagadougou was facing serious water shortages that had led to rationing because its three reservoirs had dried up, Diallo said.

Other regions in the country had also received just 150 mm. Nationally 14 provinces have been officially declared water-deficient, Diallo said.

Officials said dry conditions in the country were a threat to food availability. Some 267,000 people were already short of food and urgently needed 5000 to 7000 mt of cereals, Bassiaka Dao, head of the agricultural producers association said.

A similar operation launched for the first time in 1998 by Moroccan experts resulted in a 14 percent increase in water supply, representing a surplus of 850 million cu. mt over 1997. The increased water supply significantly raised Burkina Faso's agricultural productivity in 1998-1999, officials said.

This time Burkinabe experts are conducting the operation themselves. "After the 1998 successful experience we decided to set up our programme through the state budget," Diallo said.

"Operation Saaga" is being implemented using equipment acquired by the Burkina government at about 4.5 billion cfa (US $6.4 million). The chemicals used to gather and shell the clouds are salt-based and environmentally friendly, officials said.

Denmark, France, the Netherlands and Taiwan contributed to the purchase of the equipment.