MALNUTRITION: CAMEROON: New cassava species could boost food security

Photo: David Monniaux/Wikimedia Commons

Cassava, the “crop of last resort”

YAOUNDE, 13 November 2012 (IRIN) - Scientists and farmers’ associations have high hopes that a variety of cassava could help build their resilience to droughts and food insecurity. 

Cameroon’s National Development Programme for Roots and Tubers (PNDRT) has distributed seedlings of a new high-yield, pest-resistant variety of cassava to 1,000 smallholder farmers - most of them women - all over the country with a view to buying back cuttings from them to multiply distribution in coming years. 

While regular cassava varieties produce 9-10 tons per hectare, these improved varieties can yield as much as 20-35, according to Rachid Hanna, country representative with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and PNDRT. The two institutions have been working since 2005 to develop these new species, with backing from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). 

Cassava is the second most important source of carbohydrates in sub-Saharan African, after maize, and is eaten by around 500 million people globally every day, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Every year 280 million tons are produced, with half the supply coming from Africa. 

The crop is seen as key to boosting food security amid climate change. Regular varieties are considered by Cameroonians to be a “crop of last resort” as they can grow on poor soils and in difficult climatic conditions, and require little to no fertilizers. 

About 80 percent of Cameroonian households, most of them subsistence farmers, consume cassava on a daily basis, though a 2010 study by Plant Foods for Human Nutrition indicated that consumption of cassava is a risk factor for inadequate vitamin A, zinc and/or iron intake. 

Despite this, very little research on cassava varieties to date has taken place in Africa. The IITA is trying to change this, having introduced new varieties across the tropical cassava belt. 

The World Food Programme has an ongoing programme to deliver food to 200,000 Cameroonians in the far north, who have faced crop failure, livestock losses and high food prices that have barred them from being able to access food. Over half of families in northern Cameroon live in poverty. 

“We see it as a new dawn for cassava farmers in Cameroon,” said Hanna, adding that the new variety should improve the nutrition and livelihoods of farmers. Several varieties have been developed to fit one or more of the country’s five ecological ones. 

The new species is low in cyanide content (cassava leaves and tubers contain cyanide which disappears to trace levels when properly processed); is more resistant to drought as well as other climates including very hot temperatures; and matures in 12, not 18-26 months. In studies over the past three years, these new strains have doubled harvest sizes. 

Some 2.5 million tons of cassava is grown in Cameroon each year. Most of it is turned into flour; the rest is fermented to make liquor, to feed animals, and increasingly processed into biofuel (ethanol). 

Downsides 

But early-maturing varieties can also have a downside - they rot rapidly when in the ground, which can cause farmers to abandon species en masse. 

Felicitas Atanga, head of programmes with FAO in Cameroon, warned that no matter how high-yield the seeds, they have to also produce cassava that tastes good - as in, is sweet rather than bitter - to be picked up on a mass scale. 

Mbairanodji André, controller of production, transformation and post-harvest for PNDRT, told IRIN they are working hard to explain to the farmers involved that they must start to harvest at nine months, no later. 

To really add value to smallholders lives, each stage of the production process needs to be improved, said farmers, including helping them get their product to market quickly. 

Cassava does not store well beyond a few days, as it is 70 percent moisture, yet just a tiny minority of Cameroon’s roads are paved, making it difficult to get products from rural to urban areas. 

Experts agree that a holistic view must be taken, but large-scale infrastructure development has not yet prioritized the needs of small farmers. 

For André the next priority is processing to turn cassava into a far more lucrative cash crop. “The next stage for PNDRT or the government is to move cassava from being just a food security solution to processing it in a way that it can be used for industrial purposes,” he told IRIN. 

mn/aj/cb 

Theme (s): Economy, Environment, Food Security, Gender Issues, Natural Disasters,

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

MALNUTRITION: Niger seeks funds for Nigeriens Nourish Nigeriens agriculture initiative

Government wants cash – and ideas – to increase food security through diverse seeds, milk transfers and better land use

• Liz Ford in Brussels
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 13 November 2012 11.07 GMT
• The Niger government is urging the international community to invest millions of dollars in the country's programme to increase food security(video) and build its agricultural capabilities.

At a meeting in Paris on Tuesday, government officials are expected to present details of the 3N (Nigeriens Nourish Nigeriens) initiative to representatives from the EU, the World Bank, the IMF, other international banks and private investors from countries including Australia and Brazil.

Niger has earmarked 25% of its budget for the $2.6bn (£1.6bn) programme, which aims to improve the country's resilience to food crises, which are becoming more frequent. Niger is putting up 22% of the total amount needed for the programme and is hoping the remainder will be met by partners "who believe in what we are trying to do", said Hassane Mamoudou, technical adviser to the high commission of 3N.

The initiative includes 11 key programmes that seek to diversify agricultural production to increase cereal yields; use improved seed varieties that have shorter gestation periods and are better able to withstand erratic weather; irrigate more land; and collect, store and transfer milk from the north, which often has a surplus, to the south, which has to rely on powdered or imported milk, to improve nutrition, particularly among young people.

Speaking to journalists in Brussels this week, Mamoudou said local civil society and grassroots organisations in the country's 266 municipalities can propose ideas for how the money is spent in their areas. "All actions will start at the grassroots," he said.

"We have to target where projects are implemented. Sorghum and millet will only grow in regions where there's enough rain. If a region does not have enough rain, we don't produce it [there]. Some areas will be for livestock breeding only. If fisheries are an activity in one region, we will focus on fisheries there. We won't do everything everywhere."

A proportion of the resources will be reserved for people from marginalised groups, who are sometimes excluded from programmes. All project proposals must come with an environment and social impact study, to prove sustainability and ensure they do not have a negative impact on the environment.

The 3N initiative has been in development since 2011, when the country's president, Mahamadou Issoufou, established an action plan and called on donors to help respond to the looming food crisis following a poor harvest. This swift action helped prevent a crisis becoming a famine.

Two-thirds of Niger is desert, and only around 11% of the land is suitable for farming. "The main problem is water. Water to drink, of course, water for agriculture, for animals. And now, we have food crises recurring[video]," said Mamoudou. "We used to have a food crisis every 10 years; now every seven, every five, every two years we have a crisis. They come closer and closer and are bigger and bigger."

Mamoudou said erratic rains means there is either not enough water to produce crops, or too much so it washes away seeds, which means less food is produced. There used to be two to three months between harvests, but that has increased to sometimes six to nine months, he said.

A 2% growth in food production each year has not kept pace with annual population growth of more than 3%, he added. Mamoudou believes Niger has the ability to feed itself and protect itself from future shocks if it gets funding for 3N. "We have the potential and have to set up the conditions so Niger can feed its population and have surplus, so we can export it," he said.

The country relies heavily on donor support. Aid from the EU accounts for almost one-third of the overall needs of the population. The Niger policy will test the seriousness of donor promises to listen and respond to the needs of national governments, rather than imposing their own policies.

"We used to have a rural development strategy, but now we have our own policy, and invite partners to align with us … we've changed the rules of the game," said Mamoudou.

• Liz Ford travelled to Brussels with the European Journalism Centre

MALNUTRITION: North Korean food harvest improving, but still tight - FAO

Mon, 12 Nov 2012 17:43 GMT

Source: Reuters // Reuters

ROME, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Food production in North Korea has risen for a second year but the impoverished country still faces shortages and widespread malnutrition, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation on Monday.

The U.N. organisation forecast a 10 percent increase in the main 2012 harvests and 2013 early season crops compared with a year earlier, and said production was expected to hit 5.8 million metric tons.

The country faced a staple food deficit of 207,000 metric tons, the lowest in many years, but 2.8 million people remained vulnerable to undernutrition, the FAO added.

The body issued its findings after carrying out a mission to the isolated country to measure its cereal production.

"DPR Korea still needs international help," Kisan Gunjal, FAO economist and the mission's co-leader, said in a statement. "The new harvest figures are good news, but the lack of proteins and fats in the diet is alarming."

A 30 percent decline in soybean production due to a prolonged dry spell in the first half of 2012 was of particular concern, said the report.

The North accepted aid from its rival South Korea in September for the first time after floods destroyed swathes of farmland during the summer. (Reporting by Naomi O'Leary; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

POVERTY: Spotlight on "land grab" deals

Photo: Anna Jefferys/IRIN

Take care of the small farmer

JOHANNESBURG, 14 November 2012 (IRIN) - "Land-grab" deals involving multinationals in developing countries have often been seen as detrimental to food security and the livelihoods of millions of small farmers, but a new study puts such deals into the context of agricultural investments more generally. 

“Yes, these deals are important, but in most countries domestic investors acquire more land than foreigners,” said Pascal Liu, one of the editors of a new report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) which looks at various forms of foreign investments in agriculture including land deals.  

Liu says most agriculture-related foreign direct investment (FDI) flows into food processing (such as - fruit juices, sauces and tinned food), distribution and retailing rather than into land acquisition.
 
The FAO researchers, in collaboration with the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), examined foreign investments in nine countries (Ghana, Mali, Senegal, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia Thailand, Cambodia and Brazil) selected on the basis of the availability of data and the ability of local institutions to provide additional research. 

FAO estimates that investments of more than US$80 billion a year are needed globally to keep pace with population and income growth, and feed more than nine billion people in 2050. “High food prices in recent years have cast a spotlight on the need to boost investment in poor countries, so that farmers can respond to rising demand, and as a means to raise rural incomes," said Jonathan Hepburn of the Geneva-based International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development. 

Although FDI has risen significantly, especially in Asia and Latin America over the past decade, only a small share goes to agriculture - less than 5 percent in sub-Saharan Africa, said Liu. 

We cannot cite good examples of land deals; this is extremely difficult as land deals are dynamic. Impacts are likely to change over the course of an investment project

The FAO study also looked at research on "land-grab" deals by the Land Matrix, a partnership between the Centre for Development and Environment (CDE) at the University of Bern in Germany, the French Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement (CIRAD), the German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA), the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) and the International Land Coalition (ILC) - a global alliance of NGOs and intergovernmental organizations. 

Ward Anseeuw, a CIRAD researcher at the University of Pretoria, told IRIN the "nuanced viewpoints" in the FAO study on agricultural production, diversification of crops, employment creation, technology transfer and infrastructure development, "based on empirical case studies and presenting mixed results, are important contributions to a too often ideologized debate”. 

IRIN summarizes some of the findings from the study and other reports: 

1. Lack of data prevents the establishment of trends in FDI, including those relating to the acquisition of land for agriculture. The number of countries for which data are available varies from year to year. Looking at agriculture alone, comparable data are available for 44 countries, so you never have the complete picture. 

2. Media reports on “land-grab” deals are not entirely reliable, as most countries do not have accurate records. In Mozambique, for example, media sources indicated that more than 10 million hectares were acquired between 2008 and 2010, whereas a national inventory for 2004-2009 calculated a figure closer to 2.7 million hectares. 

3. The Land Matrix, which collates and seeks to cross-check information on large-scale land acquisitions, is a more reliable source but is also affected by other factors such as the lack of transparency in such deals. Investors and governments may not want to publicize such deals for various reasons. And even when agreements are signed and sealed, the portion of land that is actually cultivated could be very different from the total amount acquired. Kerstin Nolte, a researcher with GIGA, told IRIN: "What the Land Matrix data confirms is that indeed something is going on - we find that a large share of the deals are actually implemented (as opposed to speculation) and the noise made about `land grabbing’ is based on a real phenomenon." 

4. Investors are targeting countries with weak land tenure security but at the same time relatively high levels of investor protection. "Some 66 percent of the deals reported in the Land Matrix were in countries with high prevalence of hunger." This was backed up by the 2012 Global Hunger Index. 

5. Good quality, fertile land with irrigation is being targeted by investors. Most deals also target areas close to cities, which reduces the scope for infrastructural development spin-offs. 

6. Countries can reduce the risk of entering into harmful deals by taking guidance from international agreements such as the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (adopted in May 2012 by the Committee on World Food Security), or Voluntary Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investment which respect rights, livelihoods and resources. Liu said Sierra Leone had approached FAO to develop guidelines for sustainable bioenergy investment. "They [Sierra Leone] were being approached by several foreign investors and wanted to do it properly without compromising their food security and farmers." 

7. As far as large-scale land deals are concerned, different business models which involve small farmers while letting them keep ownership of their land, work best. A number of models envisage varying degrees of participation, including contract farming arrangements; there are also more innovative models such as joint ventures between foreign investors and a local farmer cooperative. In such models, local farmers and other members of the local community are active partners.  

8. The impact of FDI varies by project and type of business model adopted, and it is difficult to generalize. In most cases jobs were created initially, but livelihoods may not have been sustained. Projects became increasingly mechanized or the crop being produced was changed; less labour was needed. Small farmers are often displaced, pastoralists lose grazing land; general income loss may lead to social fragmentation. GIGA’s Nolte said research on the impact of FDI relating to land acquisition “is not very advanced, yet. The Land Matrix data is very poor on this. We cannot cite good examples of land deals; this is extremely difficult as land deals are dynamic. Impacts are likely to change over the course of an investment project.” 

Read more

AFRICA: Tractored out by “land grabs”?

FOOD: Land-grabbing linked with hunger

FOOD: Small farmers should get on the "land grab" bandwagon

ETHIOPIA: The great land-grab debate

LIBERIA: Land grab or development opportunity?

WEST AFRICA: The downside of foreign land acquisitions

Analysis: Land deals "threaten South Sudan's development"

9. Business models in which small farmers got to sell their produce to a contractor at higher prices (or where locals earned additional income for services such as weeding) helped the local economy. Another positive spin-off was when small farmers who worked as wage earners reinvested their earnings in their own farms. 

10. In some investment projects small farmers acquired new skills. But, “the studies suggest that the actual transfer of technology is seldom up to the level announced by the investors.” 

11. The impact of FDI on local livelihoods depends on the production system and crops selected. Imported synthetic inputs and equipment are unlikely to help the local economy. Crops such as coffee, fruit and vegetables would involve more small farmers than commercial crops. 

12. At the national level, FDI has brought about some substantial benefits. Ghana’s total palm oil output is expected to improve quite substantially because of investment by a single transnational company. In Uganda, rice production nearly doubled from 120,000 tons in 2002 to 200,000 in 2010 (The Daily Monitor, Nov 2011) because of the introduction of a new rice variety by private sector investments. In Ghana, export earnings from non-traditional agricultural commodities increased four-fold between 2000 and 2009 thanks to FDI. 

13. Ten countries have received the bulk (70 percent) of FDI targeted at land acquisition: Sudan, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Madagascar, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Philippines, Indonesia and Laos. 

14. Governments are increasingly supporting investments by their private sectors in foreign land deals, rather than investing directly in agricultural land in developing countries. "This results partly from a strategy of risk reduction, including financial risks and risks to their reputation in the wake of negative media coverage. This support can take the form of public-private partnerships whereby the government provides or guarantees loans and provides tax rebates, technical assistance or other means of assistance," said the FAO study. 

15. South African companies lead African investment on the continent. Globally, most investors are focusing their agriculture-related FDI in Africa - in Nigeria (with UK and Netherlands being the top two investors), South Africa (Switzerland and Netherlands), Ghana (UK and USA), Egypt (Saudi Arabia and Switzerland) and Angola (USA and UK). 

16. In Asia - Japan leads investment, followed by China. Global investors tend to favour China, India, Vietnam and Indonesia. 

17. FDI encourages the diversification of crops. In Senegal FDI contributed positively to the production of some high quality fresh fruits, according to the FAO study. 

jk/cb 

Theme (s): Economy, Environment, Food Security, Governance,

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

POVERTY: MYANMAR: Kachin fighting hits IDP health

Photo: Nyan Lynn/IRIN

Kachin State young IDP in November 2012

MYITKYINA, 15 November 2012 (IRIN) - Cold weather, medicine stock-outs and lack of health workers - especially those trained in mental health care - are worrying the few local NGOs working with the hardest-to-access communities of displaced people in Myanmar’s northern Kachin State. 

Some 75,000 people have been displaced following the June 2011 collapse of a 17-year ceasefire between the government and Kachin Independence Army (KIA), which has been fighting for greater autonomy for decades. 

Since mid-July this year, UN relief convoys to Kachin State stopped (after nine trips) due to lack of safety guarantees from the government and KIA, leaving some 33,000 people without international assistance.  

As fighting continues, psychological fallout from a seemingly open-ended conflict is growing, said a local NGO umbrella group. 

“Some students are having no interest in schooling and are refusing to go to school. They are listless - gazing somewhere. At night, they cry and sleep-walk,” said May Li Awng, director of Wun Pawng Ninghtoi ("Light of Kachin" - WPN), a volunteer group of eight local NGOs and charity groups that has been working in Kachin’s conflict zones since fighting broke out June 2011. 

“Close to 50 percent of IDPs [internally displaced persons] are suffering from depression and other psychological impacts,” said Moon Nay Li, coordinator of the Kachin Women’s Association of Thailand (KWAT) in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai. While KWAT has not conducted any formal survey, she said her estimate was based on work in 30 IDP camps along the China-Myanmar border plus relief provided through youth and women’s groups in KIA-controlled areas. 

Trauma 
“We don’t have the human resources to heal such traumatized cases,” said May Li Awng. “All of the groups [donors] are just interested in giving material assistance. Few are interested in such issues.” 

She had not heard of the psychosocial support which the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has helped provide to 11,000 under-five children since March 2012.  

Donors pledged some US$1.5 million in emergency relief in 2011 and $13.6 million thus far in 2012. 

Singapore Red Cross is considering directing $1.8 million of $2 million given to Myanmar Red Cross to provide psychosocial services for the war-affected displaced in Kachin State. 

It is not just the civilians who are affected, but also those serving them, said KWAT’s coordinator, Moon Nay Li. “The war is ongoing. They [health staff] have to listen to many problems of IDPs. They also want the training for trauma healing,” she said. 

Some 31,000 IDPs are in government-controlled areas, including Ja Mai Kaung (known locally as Dukataung) IDP camp in Kachin State’s capital, Myitkyina, which has some 750 people. Here a man and a woman remain in shock after seeing government security forces arrest and torture a campmate suspected of having ties to KIA. Another woman tries to escape the camp nightly, fearing a similar fate. 

Film: Kachin - Still on the run

More than 75,000 people remain displaced in Myanmar's northern Kachin State following the collapse of a 17-year cease-fire between the Burmese government and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), which has been fighting for greater autonomy for the past six decades. IRIN's latest film is set in KIA-controlled areas where humanitarian access remains extremely limited and needs are high.  View film

Nearby is Tu Mai, who never feels safe. Even while walking around his hut, he peers left and right repeatedly, suspecting someone may harm him. “I cannot sleep at night,” said the emaciated 47-year-old father of two, staring out from the hollow eyes of an insomniac. “I have to wait and watch my wife the whole night so that she can’t betray me.” 

Health needs could multiply 
Crowded living conditions, poor sanitation and hygiene, lack of clean water, and insufficient food and nutrition are causing outbreaks of diarrhoea, respiratory infections, skin diseases and malaria, according to KWAT. 

Health workers warn humanitarian needs will multiply as cold weather approaches and temperatures drop to as low as eight degrees Celsius from November to February; IDP camps are already facing medicine shortages as the number of displaced persons and outbreaks of common illnesses climb. 

“Children especially under age five mostly suffer respiratory diseases,” Maung Maung Htay, a government health assistant, told IRIN. 

The shortages are most acute in hard-to-reach areas both within government-controlled and KIA-controlled areas. 

While health workers can regularly reach children in easier-to-reach camps with polio and measles vaccinations, the youngest IDPs in remote areas with poor road access and ongoing fighting are unlikely to have any health care, much less of the preventative kind, said aid workers. 

“There are not enough medicines even to cure common sickness in the hard-to-reach areas,” said Lama Yaw of Kachin Baptist Convention (KBC), a prominent faith-based group working in IDP camps both in government and KIA-controlled areas. Most residents in Kachin State identify themselves as Christian. 

He also added that there are not enough health workers in remote areas. The situation worsens when violence forces the government to transfer out health workers. 

Before fighting flared last June, there were some 1,000 health workers in all of Kachin State to cover a population of 1.4 million people, a shortage considered “critical” by the World Health Organization. 

nl/pt/cb

Theme (s): Health & Nutrition, Refugees/IDPs,

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

POVERTY: KENYA: Rice farmers lose harvest to floods

Photo: Hezron Ochiel/IRIN

Submerged farms

KISUMU, 15 November 2012 (IRIN) - Flash floods have washed away the rice harvest of some 2,000 farmers in western Kenya, flooding some of their homes and sending latrine effluent into water courses, according to officials and residents. 

“We are estimating that some 2,000 farmers have lost their crops due to the raging floods. Much of this crop had been harvested and was still in the farms being dried,” said James Samo, agricultural specialist at the Ministry of Agriculture. 

The affected farmers live in the 870-hectare Kano Plains rice irrigation scheme in Kisumu District. 

“Heavy rains are wreaking havoc here and our only source of livelihood, rice, is threatened. The floods have washed [it all away] and are threatening to displace us. I only managed to salvage a few bags of rice when the water subsided,” Leonard Onyango, a rice farmer, told IRIN. 

Onyango said he had lost over 10 50kg bags of rice, but fears he might lose the few he managed to salvage if the rains continue. 

In October, the Metrological Department issued an alert over possible flash floods in parts of the country following the start of the country’s October-to-December short rains, which it said, may be exacerbated by possible mild-to-moderate El Niño conditions. 

Rice millers in the region told IRIN they are already facing shortages as a result of the heavy rains which have also hampered access to farms. 

“Our mill has run out of rice due to rains. We can no longer meet our market demand,” Geoffrey Wekesa, an agricultural expert from Lake Basin Development Authority (LBDA), said. 

Heavy rains are wreaking havoc here and our only source of livelihood, rice, is threatened. The floods have washed [it all away] and are threatening to displace us. I only managed to salvage a few bags of rice when the water subsided.

Rice is Kenya’s third staple, after maize and wheat. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, domestic production of rice stands at 50,000 tons per year, while annual consumption is 350,000 tons. Pakistan alone exports 200,000 tons of rice to Kenya annually. 

Health threat 

Residents said the floods had not only swept away their crops and farms, but also pit latrines which could lead to an outbreak of waterborne diseases. 

“Our pit latrines have been washed away and they are being driven into the water sources. We continue using this water but I know people will get sick after some time,” Leonard Kwama, a youth leader said. 

Kwama faulted the accuracy of past flood warnings. “At times past flood warnings pass without any of these occurrences and farmers begin to doubt and are reluctant to heed them,” he said. 

Government officials said they had put in place plans to train farmers on flood mitigation and management. 

“We have set in motion plans to ensure that farmers are trained on how to mitigate effects of floods by giving them skills on how to build flood-proof storage facilities. Many farmers keep their harvest in the house and when floods occur, they lose it all. We will train them on how to build raised storage structures,” Reuben Dienya from the Ministry of Environment, said. 

Earlier attempts by the government to build oxbows and canals to ease future flooding were abandoned after locals demanded compensation since the structures were to be built on their farms. 

In April and May this year, several parts of Western and Nyanza regions experienced flooding leaving more than 15,000 people displaced. 

Evacuation centres built in the area this year with the help of the Japanese government can only accommodate 12,000 people. 

ho/ko/cb 

Theme (s): Early Warning, Economy, Food Security, Health & Nutrition, Natural Disasters, Water & Sanitation,

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

MALNUTRITION: Senegal’s Urban Agriculture

By Koffigan E. Adigbli

DAKAR, Nov 26 2012 (IPS) - Watering cans in hand, men and women move back and forth between the wells and water storage tanks and the crops they’re watering: carrots, onions, tomatoes, cabbage, and potatoes, as well as fruit trees like palm, coconut, papaya and banana trees.

Growers like Ahmadou Sene are working tirelessly to produce vegetables in and around the Senegalese capital. Sene, in his forties, has a one-hectare plot. For three months of the year, he has a dozen young people to hoe and weed the garden, and for four months a group of 20 women work to harvest and sell his produce.

“Vegetables make up more than 80 percent of my crops,” he said, gesturing towards his garden. He cultivates his field year round, and harvests nearly 12 tonnes of vegetables each quarter.

According to the 2011 census conducted by the Regional Office for Statistics and Demographics (SRSD), some 3,200 people work in horticulture in the Dakar region, spread across 113 production sites.

Around 6,000 people work in horticulture, which supports more than 40,000 people in the capital, and a million people across the country.

Related IPS Articles

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• Senegal’s Investment in Rural Youth Bearing Fruit

The SRSD’s report for last October showed that between 2010 and 2011, the cultivated area in the Dakar region grew from 5,098 hectares to 8,700 hectares. Horticultural production in the area rose from 750,000 to 860,000 tonnes during the same period. This year, the area being cultivated in and around Dakar is 11,300 hectares, and production, accounting for all crops, is estimated at 1,780,000 tonnes.

According to the same report, urban agriculture in the Dakar region alone generated 450 million dollars in 2011, supplying 45 percent of the city’s food supply.

But while urban farming is growing, farmers are facing difficulties linked to access to land, the marketing of vegetables, the recycling of water for irrigation, and access to financing.

Even as the cultivated area is growing, some farmers are struggling to find land to expand their operations.

“In 2010, I had an 800 square metre field. I was able to turn a profit of 600,000 CFA (about 1,200 dollars). But this year, I’ve only got 350 square metres to farm, because the government has taken over a large portion of my land for a dam to hold water,” said Cheikh Mor Ndiaye, a grower at Cambérène, one of the sprawling suburbs on the outskirts of the capital.

The president of the administrative council of the Federated Cooperative of Horticulturalists of Senegal (CFAHS), Cheikh Ngane, told IPS that while garden farming provides livelihoods for a good number of Senegalese, it is undermined by the recurring problem of access to land.

“Most horticulturalists are working with land that belongs to the state. To develop horticulture, it’s important to resolve the problem of land,” he said, adding that the problem is aggravated by competing claims from developers working on residential housing developments.

The issue of land ownership can also lead to problems obtaining credit. “For example, if someone has their own plot, assigned to them by the rural community, bankers are not confident when they ask for a loan,” said Cheikh Ngane.

Ababacar Sy Gaye, director of horticulture at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Infrastructure, said “We have outlined measures to ensure the promotion of horticultural crops, particularly with regard to inputs and good agricultural practices.”

His department is responsible for implementing the national policy for development of horticultural production.

Despite these difficulties, the farmers are passionate about their work — no surprise, given the profitability of market gardening. “With my little plot, I put away at least 400,000 francs per year (around 800 dollars) after covering costs like buying inputs,” said Cheikh Mor.

According to Jean-Marie Sambou, a grower at Patte d’Oie, wholesalers have some advantages in buying their produce when compared to retailers. “We sell a kilo of onions to the wholesalers at 150 CFA, and they later re-sell this to retailers at 250 francs or more, and in the market, the same kilo sells for 350 CFA (68 U.S. cents),” he said.

“Buyers from hotel and restaurant kitchens in Dakar regularly come out to my field to buy produce,” Ahmadou told IPS. “On average, I sell three tonnes of vegetables (every quarter) to women who resell them in local markets. I earn one million CFA francs per year after the sale of my produce and paying out the people who work for me.”

POVERTY: Congo war exposes folly of western aid

Britain and other donors bankrolled flawed elections that handed power to a greedy elite incapable of constructing a viable state

• Richard Dowden for African Arguments, part of the Guardian Africa Network
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 27 November 2012 12.17 GMT
• 

A Democratic Republic of the Congo government soldier takes a sip of home-made whisky at their headquarters in Minova. Photograph: Dai Kurokawa/EPA

Africa is covered in epithets, like graffiti. It has been labelled dark, lost, hopeless. But generalisations about Africa are dangerous. The only certainty is its size: it could contain the United States, China and India and still have room to spare. Recently it has been dubbed rising, hopeful, the continent of the future. But Africa cannot be declared successful until its vast, rich heart, the Congo, is peaceful and prosperous.

Most other African countries have more or less emerged from the uprisings and chaos of the 1990s that followed the end of the Cold War. But Congo lies broken and wasting. The last two elections have not produced a government capable of delivering services or security. The legacy of Mobutu Sese Seko's 32-year corrupt kleptocracy remains the zeitgeist of its ruling class. The people must fend for themselves.

Congo's potential, like most of Africa's, is immense and unmeasured. It has everything that the rest of the planet needs for the future; the highest reserves of mineral ore, thousands of square miles of fertile land and the second largest rainforest in the world. The energy of its huge, fast flowing river could power up much of southern Africa.

The knee-jerk reaction of Britain and other western countries is therefore to give Congo aid. And the only way of spending 0.7% of our GDP on aid is to give it to governments. But has Congo got a government? In 1997 the remnants of the Mobutu regime were pushed out by the armies ofRwanda and Uganda. They replaced him with Laurent Kabila, a former revolutionary and cafe owner, living in exile. When he rejected the Rwandans' tutelage, they had him murdered and replaced him with his son, Joseph.

To legitimise Joseph Kabila the aid donors paid for and organised two elections, each costing more than a billion dollars. In 2011 that came out of a national budget of £4.6 billion ($7.3 billion). The elections satisfied the western political need to give Kabila international legitimacy so he could now receive aid. But the elections in Congo divided rather than united. The losers saw them as fraudulent.

After the election supporters were rewarded, opponents shunned but they live in different parts of the country so a small war broke out. At the very moment when the country needed to come together, the western solution deepened the divisions. It also handed total political and economic power to a greedy elite incapable of constructing a viable state – even, as one Congolese academic said, in their own narrow interests.

What has wrecked the Congo is not lack of aid. It is politics. Aid has probably made things worse by offering development which may never be delivered. There is no state capable of delivering it. If ever there was a case for a country to be under a UN mandate, it is Congo. The United Nations' current half-baked, ill-thought-out mandate was cruelly exposed last week as UN troops stood back to allow rebels to take the city of Goma in eastern Congo.

But there was a second, even more catastrophic contradiction in western policy. After the Rwandan genocide, western governments, ridden with guilt, supported the incoming Rwandan regime, a rebel group led by the charismatic Paul Kagame. He now runs a capable state – perhaps too capable. Rwanda is a tightly controlled dictatorship, with almost no press or political freedom. But it uses aid well, it is not stolen. A succession of British aid ministers from Clare Short to Andrew Mitchell see Kagame as the saviour of Africa. They gave him money – currently £83m a year, knowing it will be spent on education, health and other good things.

Rwanda's success however is Congo's loss. Fearful that political opponents will gather in the forests and mountains across the border in eastern Congo, the Rwandan and Ugandan regimes have armed militias there, most recently the M23, Mouvement de 23 Mars. This militia protects the Tutsis of eastern Congo, Kagame's ethnic group, and guards mines and plantations controlled by senior Rwandan and Ugandan officers. They control and tax trade routes and bring the loot across the border to Uganda and Rwanda. Above all, they ensure that there is no order, security or justice in eastern Congo. Every village has a militia and many have turned into roving gangs killing, raping and stealing at will. Controlled anarchy in eastern Congo suits Rwanda and Uganda – as long as the anarchy does not get out of hand.

Unfortunately, and embarrassingly for the British and American governments, Rwanda and Uganda, their closest allies in the region, have been fingered by a well-researched United Nations report, as the suppliers of weapons to M23 as well as the beneficiaries of the free-for-all in eastern Congo. The US tried to suppress the report. The British suspended aid to Rwanda. On his last day at Dfid Mitchell restored it.

The war in eastern Congo is the worst war in the world, costing according to some estimates five million lives. It is time the US and UK took it seriously and played a more even and consistent hand in trying to bring peace.

Richard Dowden is the director of the Royal African Society and author of Africa; altered states, ordinary miracles