FAO concerned about lack of crop seeds

Faced with a chronic lack of seeds, the Central African Republic (CAR) is facing a potentially disastrous agricultural season, a local official of the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) in Bangui, the nation's capital, warned on 7 February. The agency's acting representative, Gana Diagne, said hungry rural people had eaten almost all their seeds reserved for crop planting. The country's major food crops are cassava, groundnuts, maize and rice. The national agronomy research institute - the Institut centrafricain des recherches agronomiques (ICRA) - used to collect seeds from the agricultural north of the country, but which is now under the control of the rebels loyal to the former army chief of staff, Francois Bozize. The FAO is considering importing seeds if the research institute fails to provide farmers with seeds before the planting season begins in April/May. "We have funds to purchase a certain quantity of seeds, but we cannot meet the needs of the whole population," Diagne said during a weekly UN-NGO humanitarian coordination meeting. "The problem we have is that the types of seeds in the CAR are different from those in other countries," Etienne Ngounio-Gabia, the FAO programme officer, said. Meanwhile, the 11-day UN humanitarian assessment mission to rebel-held zones due to have started on 6 February had been postponed, the UN Development Programme resident representative, Stan Nkwain, told IRIN. Employees of eight UN agencies were to have flown to Sahr, a town in southern Chad, from where they were to have entered northern CAR to assess the human rights, humanitarian, health, nutritional, educational, food and water needs of the local population cut off by fighting between government and rebel forces. Northern CAR has been under the control of the rebels ever since their unsuccessful bid on 25 October 2002 to overthrow President Ange-Felix Patasse.