By IPS Correspondents
FERKE, Northern Côte d'Ivoire, Feb 21 2007 (IPS)

Every day as he leaves his house for the fields, Ousmane Soro is plagued by questions: “What will become of my harvests for sweet potatoes, sugar cane and mangoes this year? Will I be able to meet my family’s needs?”

The farmer from Ouaraga village in the Ferké region of northern Côte d’Ivoire is not alone in these worries: other producers share his fears. “For several years now we have been seeing a reduction in our agricultural production. Soil degradation is becoming worse, and rainfall is constantly diminishing,” Soro says.

In 2001, Ferké registered 1,000 millimetres (mm) of rain. By 2005, the total had dropped to 800 mm, and last year to 700 mm.

This isn’t propitious for harvests, notes Hermann Kassi, agricultural advisor in the north for the Cotton Company of Côte d’Ivoire (Compagnie cotonnière de Côte d’Ivoire), as it creates a situation where “…the soil lacks water and does not yield as much as before.”

Just five years ago, Ferké had the best production in the north. “We harvested 180,000 tonnes of mangoes, almost as much of cashew nuts, 150,000 tonnes of sugar cane, 90,000 tons of cotton. We also had thousands of head of cattle and poultry,” says Kassi.

Now, producers bring in 80,000 tonnes of mangos, 100,000 tonnes of cashew nuts and 115,000 tonnes of sugar cane, according to the Ferké Agricultural Producers’ Co-operative (Coopérative des producteurs agricoles de Ferké).

Cereal production fell from almost 1.8 million tonnes in 2001 to just under 1.3 million in 2003, prompting the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation to sound the alarm.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has also expressed concern about the food situation in Côte d’Ivoire, describing it as critical, particularly in the north and west – areas under rebel control. The country was divided into a rebel-held north and government-controlled south in the wake of a failed coup in September 2002.

OCHA notes that since May 2003, rainfall has been below average in the whole of Côte d’Ivoire, adversely affecting millet and sorghum production in the north and maize production in the south.

Against this backdrop, says Kassi, farmers have begun to abandon cash crops in favour of food crops which they hope will both earn money and stave off hunger.

But, there’s no guarantee that this will keep food on the table, warns Maxime Kablan, from the National Agency for Rural Development (Agence nationale de développement rural). “Production forecasts for rice, maize and millet production might not be realised because of the delayed rains, and their scarcity,” he says.

Notes agroeconomist Véronique Brou, “We have reached a critical stage. There is nothing for it but to encourage and support women who practice rice culture in the northern part of the country.”

This proposal is supported by Actions, Gender, Economic and Social Development (Actions, genre, développement économique et social, AGEDES), a non-governmental organisation based in the Ivorian financial capital of Abidjan.

“We are in a delicate situation which could lead to famine if nothing is done,” says Brou Kouamé, chairperson of AGEDES.

Kablan also claims that certain practices of rural communities in the north are questionable.

“There are numerous uncontrolled forest fires here, and virgin tracts of land are consumed by these fires each year,” he said. As a result, young plants which sprout in the rainy season are reduced to ashes in the dry season. “This makes the regeneration of woody forest trees almost impossible.”

According to Brou, all rural households use firewood to meet their energy needs – while 90 percent of the urban population in northern savannah areas uses wood or charcoal.

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