ECOWAS commissioner urges stakeholders on food sufficiency

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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