Extra seeds for Karuzi farmers

The international NGO World Vision has increased its seed distribution to farmers in Karuzi province, northern Burundi, which is facing food shortage due to drought, the agency reported on its website [http://www.wvi.org/] on Tuesday. If planted early, the seeds would enable farmers to harvest in May [in the 2001 'B' season]. This planting would also be used to assess the extent of failing food production in the area, which is home to about 360,000 people, the NGO stated. In Gihogazi commune, over 1,400 households on Friday received 15 kg of bean seeds and small packs of cabbage seeds, it said. In a joint exercise with the FAO, the agency intends to assist almost 60,000 families in Karuzi to plant and secure their food supply. "We hope that even if the people without enough eat some of the seed, they will still have a little to plant," said Dominic Ndereyimana, an agronomist with World Vision, on Friday. In all, 250,000 vulnerable households in provinces with high malnutrition rates will receive seed distributions of 10 kg per family, according to the FAO. A particularly virulent malaria epidemic has also been raging through the hilly parts of northern Burundi since October, killing mostly children and rendering most adults unproductive, World Vision stated. According to statistics at Buhiga hospital, the biggest in Karuzi province, 25,000 new cases of malaria were being reported every week, it said. The malaria outbreak corresponded with planting time last season, and had a severe effect on the planting due to a decrease in manpower for the job, the agency added. Eighty percent of new arrivals to health centres and hospitals countrywide suffer from malaria, according to WHO. The health NGO Medecins sans frontieres (MSF) has set up supplementary and therapeutic feeding centres to cope with the high number of malnutrition cases among children, and called for parallel interventions to cater for the future food needs in this area.