FAO gives 1 million people farming inputs

At least one million Burundian farmers, whose food security has become increasingly precarious, are receiving emergency agricultural inputs from the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the UN agency reported on Wednesday. The FAO office in Nairobi reported that 2,000 mt of locally procured bean seeds would be distributed to 210,937 households in time for planting in October. "In a collaborative intervention, seeds and agricultural inputs will be distributed at the same time as WFP [the UN World Food Programme] provides seed protection rations to prevent beneficiaries from consuming seed provided by FAO and NGO partners," it said. It also said that some 350 mt of maize, various vegetable seeds and 95,800 hand tools would be distributed nationwide, "but particularly in the country's central and eastern provinces, such as in Gitega, Ruyigi, Kayanza, Ngozi and Bujumbura rural”. These provinces have borne the brunt of fighting between the army and rebel groups. The FAO said these areas had experienced "a very high prevalence" of internally displaced people. It said that the targets for the distribution were internally displaced, repatriated and returning groups; children, women and elderly headed households; and farmers whose crops and fields had been looted by armed groups. The European Community Humanitarian Organization, the Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance, and the governments of Belgium, The Netherlands and Sweden had funded this multi-donor project, the FAO said. The government, WFP, the UN Children's Fund and FAO have been conducting twice yearly joint assessment missions since 1995 to evaluate crop and harvest performance in a given agricultural season, the FAO said. These assessments help provide an indication of food production, stocks, food deficits and seed requirements, the FAO said. Its January assessment concluded that conflicts, erratic rains and hailstorms during the February to May agricultural season resulted in the loss of much of the agricultural harvest, particularly of beans, potatoes, maize and banana crops. The FAO added that the assessment estimated that the total food production for the season under review would be 1,955 mt compared with 1,984 mt for the same time the previous year. "This represents a decline of some 1 percent and of 6 percent compared to one year ago, indicating that there has been no recovery in the agricultural sector in the last year," the FAO said.