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Agriculture | |
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Friday, January 26,
2018 01.19PM / African Farming
The Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) and
the World Food Programme (WFP) have stepped up efforts to assist farmers and
alleviate hunger in Congo and Nigeria
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, FAO and WFP
will be working in the Greater Kasai area, which has been affected by conflict.
FAO will supply food-growing kits, including cultivation tools and fruit and
vegetable seeds to allow families to eat for two months and sell any food that
is uneaten. Citizens will receive training in raising guinea pigs as a source
of protein, and in processing and marketing bamboo to use for fishing
equipment, canoes, fences, firewood and utensils. Additionally, WFP will distribute
fortified maize, legumes, fortified vegetable oil and iodised salt, as well as
cash. Children aged from six months to five years, as well as pregnant and
breastfeeding women will be treated for three months with nutritious
supplements. The joint initiative will be rolled out in partnership with the
DRC Ministry of Agriculture and local NGOs.
Greater Kasai was a maize-producing region before
the conflict, which has forced a million people out of their homes and off
their land. An estimated 3.2mn people are now severely hungry and child
malnutrition is widespread.
Meanwhile, in north-eastern Nigeria, hunger has
considerably declined for the first time since the Boko Haram crisis. According
to the latest Cadre Harminise food security analysis, the number of people
living in the three states affected by violence who are facing acute hunger has
halved since last August from 5.2mn to 2.6mn. The analysis attributed this to
an overall improved security situation and the ramping up of humanitarian and
longer-term livelihoods assistance by the Nigerian government and its partners.
FAO has helped farmers in the area by providing
cowpea, maize, millet, sorghum, vegetable seeds and fertilises to 1mn people -
internally displaced people, returned refugees and host communities - to get
them through the last rainy season which ended in September 2017. Food stocks
become low during this period. The harvest season is now winding down and
communities are transitioning to the next dry season and a new planting phase.
FAO is aiming to boost local production through the distribution of farming
kits, vegetable seeds, fertilisers and irrigation equipment across 780,000
people in three states.
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