Cereal deficit reaches 70,000 tonnes in the North

The Far North Region remains under the threat of food insecurity because the rainfall situation is catastrophic as compared to last year.

The cereal deficit in 2015 is estimated at almost 200,000 tonnes, against a lack of 130,000 tons recorded in 2014 which had an increase of 70,000 tons.

These explanations from Mr. Abakachi, an agricultural economist engineer and regional delegate of Agriculture and Rural Development in the Far North, were made on Friday in Yaoundé.

This source noted that the situation is more alarming, such that the departments affected by insecurity imposed by Boko Haram (Mayo-Sava, Mayo-Tsanaga and Logone-and-Chari), are the ones being affected the most in the region at this time. Production basins did not harvest which gives the impression that the inhabitants had fled their villages.

As if that was not enough, the other three departments of the region at war (Mayo-Danay, Mayo-Kani and Diamare) face the harshness of climate change. "Suddenly, there are two opposite trends that exacerbate the food crisis. Support and other gifts are no longer sufficient to fill the gap and the food ration today is limited to one meal a day,” lamented the regional delegate.

He was the representative of the Governor of the Far North Region, in the meeting of the Supervisory Committee managing the threats of food crisis in the above-mentioned area, in Yaoundé on Friday.

The work of the Committee in question, conducted by Essimi Menye, Minister of Agriculture and rural development (Minader), took place behind closed doors. After the discussions, Minader recalled that "this meeting aimed to take stock of the instructions of the head of state, to take steps to ensure the food security of populations victims of the effects of the war imposed on us by the Boko Haram sect.”

It appears that a first distribution of food was made in March 2015, and a second at the end of May. Currently, specified Minader, 'it is the rainy season and roads are hardly passable. But arrangements are being made to send food in these areas where there is need."

Essimi Menye indicated that it was also a deliberation during their consultation, to see how to intensify the distribution of foodstuffs. However Minader reassured that, “agricultural activity has resumed in the Far North. Despite the late arrival of the rains, people have actually used the seed which had been given to them and have returned to their farms.”