The Principal
Programme Officer for Agriculture and ECOWAS Commissioner for Agriculture,
Environment and Water Resources, Mr. Ernest Aubee, has said that stakeholders
must ensure that there is food sufficiency in the region, reports Pan Africa New Agency (PANA).
Speaking
Tuesday at a two-day sub-regional council and board meeting in Banjul organised
by the West African Network of Peasants and Producers Association (ROPPA) and
the National Coordination Organization of Farmers Association in Gambia
(NACOFAG) in collaboration with Aub-Rural, a sub-regional civil society
organization, he said “stakeholders must ensure that the region moves from the
region of food deficit to that of food surplus.”
The
two-day meeting which opened on Monday was intended to renew commitment and
reflect on the importance of policy connection on the ECOWAS Policy on
Agriculture (ECOWAP) and the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development
Programme (CAADP) programme and to hasten the implementation of actions at the
regional level.
NaijaAgroNet
gathered that Mr. Aubee also said that the challenges of food and nutrition
security remained a top priority if countries were to achieve continental and
global development commitments and targets such as the CAADP and the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs). He further said, the complexity of the agricultural sector, compounded by issues of climate change, skewed terms of trade give rise to global economic imbalances and growing levels of inequality and poverty,.
He therefore, called for a more innovative and concerted approach to agricultural development in West Africa, stressing that “The ECOWAS Commission since 2003 has taken bold steps to put in place a holistic policy for the development of the agricultural and rural sectors of West Africa”.
NNEKA ALAMAEZE/LS
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