The
continuous security situation in the Central African Republic (CAR) is giving
the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) some nightmares, hence it warned on
the potential food security crisis in the country.
NaijaAgroNet reports that FAO says
that despite security challenges in half of the prefectures, farmers in the
Central African Republic are counting on the next agriculture season to restore
their food production capacity to avoid risks of famine and malnutrition.
NaijaAgroNet recalls that since last
year when they had to flee the violence, farming communities had to abandon
their fields along the main roads to replant deep in the bush.
This
disruption, experts say has led them to produce much less than previous years
with a major impact on their food reserves that will last till February instead
of July 2014.
NaijaAgroNet gathered that FAO of
the United Nations is already working to provide farmers with seeds and tools
for the next campaign however more funds are needed for the food security
component of the 100-day response plan.
According
to NaijaAgroNet, the initial
assessments conducted in the past weeks indicated a deteriorating situation in
terms of low food stocks, widespread disruption to village food markets and a
lack of purchasing power overall among other issues.
Acting
FAO Representative in the Central African Republic, Alexis Bonte, who recently
visited Bossangoa revealed to NaijaAgroNet
that the combination of food shortages and poor sanitary conditions in the
camps and deep in the bush, as well as extreme poverty, risk triggering serious
malnutrition.
The
success of the next planting season Bonte noted is crucially hinging on the
return of farming families to the fields, stressing that families who are
unable to plant in March will have to wait one whole year before they could
hope to harvest again.
“Failure
to help these families will have dramatic consequences on the food security for
a quarter of the Central African population. The low production perceived from
the last harvest coupled with a prevailing situation of chronic country-wide
malnutrition is setting the stage for a full scale food and nutrition security
crisis should the next planting season fail, reports the Organization today,”
FAO official said.
Ayo Omidele/GEE
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