Seed fair to serve 70,000 households

Catholic Relief Services (CRS) Burundi and its partners, under the coordination of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, announced on Monday that they would serve more than 70,000 Burundian farming families with seed during the September-October planting season. On average the Burundi household consists of six. In a statement made available to IRIN on Friday; CRS said it and its partners, through using an approach that provides needy households with a subsidy to buy agricultural inputs, also expected to inject nearly $500,000 into local agricultural markets during the season. CRS said the programme responded to seed access problems, where farming families lack income, resources, and/or the "social capital" to access seed. It said the approach involved supplying needy households with a voucher usable to acquire seed from local traders. Local seed traders then redeem the vouchers for cash. "Choice, individual empowerment, and support to local agricultural markets are the watchwords for seed vouchers and fairs," CRS said. During the past two agricultural seasons in Burundi, seed voucher and fair programmes reached 142,000 farming families and more than $850,000 was injected into local agricultural markets in 16 communes across the country. Monitoring systems, CRS said, indicated that 20 percent of all direct recipients of vouchers in Burundi were families repatriated or displaced in the previous six months to the intervention. The average package of seed that voucher holders negotiated was 14.5 kg and included beans, sorghum, maize, peas, rice, and groundnut. A total of 8,036 seed traders participated in these fairs; 22 percent of all traders were women, and the average revenue per trader was $115. Catholic Relief Services Burundi partners for this intervention included the Caritas Burundi network through the Diocesan Development Offices of Bubanza, Gitega, Muyinga, and Ruyigi; and in collaboration with TearFund UK.