FAO gives maize seeds to boost food security in south

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has started distributing maize seeds to farmers in southern Central African Republic (CAR) and around the capital, Bangui, a FAO official told IRIN on Wednesday. FAO Programme Officer Etienne Ngounio-Gabia said the distribution of 5 mt of maize that began on Monday would target 200 families along the road from Bangui to the town of Mbaiki, 107 km south of Bangui, as well as villages around Bangui. "The project initially included groundnuts and cassava cuttings, but we preferred to start with maize, which still has a chance to be planted," Ngounio-Gabia said. He added that FAO was working with the population of the southeastern provinces of Mbomou, Basse Kotto and Ouaka to obtain cassava cuttings to be distributed to other parts of the country. To repair the cassava deficit provoked by the massive inflow of refugees from neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1997-8 in the southeast, FAO imported high-quality cassava cuttings from Ibadan, Nigeria, which showed "extra-ordinary results", Ngounio-Gabia said. He said that these cuttings, together with groundnuts, would be distributed for the next farming season. The war that pitted rebel troops loyal to Francois Bozize and government forces of former President Ange-Felix Patasse from October 2002 to March 2003 considerably disrupted the farming season in the country. Farmers fled their homes and were forced to consume their seed crops in order to survive, while the Institut Centrafricain de Recherches Agronomiques, which normally collected seeds and redistributed them to farmers, had their stocks looted. Fighting ended on 15 March, when Bozize overthrew Patasse, now living in exile in Togo. A UN mission that toured the north in early August warned of a possible famine in January/ February 2004 if no emergency measures were taken. In an effort to revamp farming and breeding activities after the war, FAO and the government signed an agreement of about US $730,000 in June. Ngounio-Gabia said the training of livestock breeders of hen, rabbits and pigs was also underway, and that his agency was awaiting shipments of animals to distribute them to 7,500 breders.