2023-06-12 08:13:20
• Can it be implemented in the middle of the agricultural campaign?
• Will the soldiers leave the front for the fields?
• What role for the ministry in this adventure?
TAll the stakeholders of the agricultural campaign must have jumped when they read the report of the Council of Ministers of Wednesday, May 31, 2023. Indeed, under the Presidency of Faso, the Council adopted a report relating to a “Presidential Initiative for agricultural production 2023-2024”. This presidential initiative is organized around 3 components, namely: the Emergency Initiative for the intensification of rice cultivation in Burkina Faso on 4,000 hectares; the Burkina Faso Military Food Program (PAMBF) on 3,500 hectares and the Homeland Defense Production Against Food Insecurity (PDPIA) on 3,500 hectares.
The objectives of this initiative are, among others, to meet the national demand for rice in a context marked by security constraints, climate change and import restrictions linked to the Russian-Ukrainian crisis. The initiative also aims to prepare combat forces for the profession of agriculture, following the war once morest terrorism and the production of high-yield sorghum, maize and millet by volunteers for the defense of the homeland (VDP).
The report states that the implementation of the initiative will involve military, VDP, internally displaced persons (IDPs) and other direct agricultural workers who will produce approximately 190,000 tons of cereals and vegetables on approximately 11,000 hectares, at the end of the 2023-2024 season. Its cost is twenty-two billion one hundred sixty-eight million six hundred thirty-seven thousand four hundred and twenty-three (22,168,637,423) FCFA and will be financed by the State budget and technical and financial partners.
If only for the objectives, this initiative is noble, of course, but in form and substance, it raises many questions. This initiative was adopted in the middle of the 2023-2024 agricultural campaign to be implemented in this same agricultural campaign, with crops whose production cycles may have already begun: millet (90-95 days), sorghum (110- 140 days), rice (100-105 days), maize (90-180 days). In addition, officials from the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal and Fisheries Resources met on Monday, April 24, 2023, for the first session of the Ministerial Sector Board of Directors (CASEM) of their department.
This working session was devoted to the assessment of the implementation of the department’s activities for the year 2022, on the one hand, and on the other hand, to a reflection on the theme “Governance of projects and programs for a real contribution to the achievement of the ministry’s missions: inventory and prospects”. The Minister himself officially launched the 2022-2023 agricultural campaign on Friday, May 19, 2023, in the Center-South region, under the theme “Increasing agro-sylvo-pastoral productivity in Burkina Faso: what strategies for the sustainable supply of geotechnical and veterinary agricultural inputs? “. Nowhere was this initiative officially mentioned during these two activities. The government spokesman may well specify that it is the National Office for Major Projects, a structure attached to the Presidency of Faso, which will carry this initiative of Captain Ibrahim Traoré, the technical arm of such a project remains the Ministry of Agriculture and its non-involvement might lead to mixed results.
Moumoni SIMPORE
framed
Use of the State budget and partners technical and financial
En terms of manpower, the Presidential Initiative for Agricultural Production 2023-2024 will mobilize more than 1,000 soldiers, more than 2,000 volunteers for the defense of the homeland (VDP) and more than 4,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs). Where will these 1,000 soldiers come from, when we know that the State has recruited 50,000 VDPs to accelerate the security network of the territory, because the number of soldiers did not allow it? Can we remove 1,000 soldiers from the various fronts today, when the situation is not yet under control? Are we going to recruit 2,000 VDPs specifically for the fields? When will they be mobilized, trained, equipped, when the agricultural campaign is well underway? The soldiers, the VDP, the PDI will be mobilized on more than 11,000 hectares. Where will these lands be cleared? The Ministry of Agriculture, in its forecasts for the campaign, only listed the development of 3,692 ha, including 2,351 ha of lowlands and 1,341 ha of irrigated perimeter. Can the presidential initiative be above national planning? The president needs 22,168,637,423 FCFA for his initiative. For this, it will have recourse to the State budget and to technical and financial partners.
The article IB and agriculture: an initiative, questions appeared first on Journal L’Economiste du Faso.
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