Canadian NGO assists farmers in the north

A Canadian humanitarian NGO, Oxfam-Quebec, is due to carry out a census of farmers in the north of the Central African Republic (CAR) and assess their needs for seeds before distributing 18 mt of groundnut seeds, an official of the NGO told IRIN on Friday.

"Currently we do not have the exact number of farmers to whom to distribute the seeds," Lucie Pelletier, the Oxfam representative in the CAR, said, adding that an assessment mission was headed for Sibut, 185 km northeast of the capital, Bangui, to identify the beneficiaries.

Pelletier said that the groundnut seeds were purchased locally, using funds from Oxfam-Great Britain. She said another NGO, the French Cooperation Service, would provide machetes for the farmers to use during the April-May planting season.

Described as the country's breadbasket, the north of the CAR was the most affected by six months of war between rebel and government forces between October 2002 and March 2003. The conflict ended when Francois Bozize, a former army chief of staff, ousted the president, Ange-Felix Patasse, in a coup on 15 March.

To date, no large-scale assistance has been organised to the north, where thousands of people fled their homes to escape violence. In an appeal for US $9.1 million late in April, UN agencies in the CAR said they urgently needed $4.85 million to provide food and seeds for vulnerable populations in the north.