By Aly Ouattara
KORHOGO, Northern Côte d'Ivoire, Oct 10 2007 (IPS)

Nibon Soro and Kartenin Silué, two children living in the Korhogo region of northern Côte d’Ivoire, should be in school. But, farm duties – and their family’s poverty – stand in the way of education.

The two, both under 10, drive the draught animals that help with ploughing. “We really want to go to school, but our father says that he doesn’t have the money to educate us, and there is no-one to help him in the fields either,” they told IPS.

It is estimated that there are about 2,000 of these child cattle herders (generally aged six to 14) in the north of Côte d’Ivoire; but, only 912 are being taught to read and write, according to Rural Development of Korhogo (Animation rurale de Korhogo, ARK), a non-governmental organisation (NGO).

ARK is trying to improve on these figures without taking children out of the fields.

“The empty or rest hours of these cattle herders were chosen by the NGO to start teaching reading and writing in the children’s own areas, and a…park was created where the animals can be gathered while the children learn to read,” Director Benoît Sinan Soro told IPS.

The teaching is done under trees or in village huts with the help of 77 ARK members, and others, throughout the north.

With financial and material support from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), ARK has created community literacy centres in several villages, where learners are grouped.

Those who teach the child cattle herders in these centres only have various levels of secondary schooling – and are trained in educational methods by the Autonomous Literacy Service, set up by government.

Children younger than 14 may ultimately be integrated into the normal education system. Older children have the chance of starting a programme on farm management, which helps in the cultivation of parcels of land allocated to them.

Sinan Soro says that many parents of the child cattle herders, having understood the importance of literacy for their off-spring, are now asking for education to help the children read and write. “However, pockets of resistance remain where parents with one child have difficulty choosing between school and draught agriculture.”

According to literacy advisor Bakary Fofana, the Autonomous Literacy Service uses meetings to promote “literacy in different regions of the country where draught agriculture takes place, given that the rate of illiteracy is 57 percent in Côte d’Ivoire.”

But it was only in 2005 that the national education ministry officially endorsed the project to educate child cattle herders; and ARK remains the only group carrying out this initiative on the ground. The NGO is looking for financial assistance to increase the rate of education in northern Côte d’Ivoire.

“Following work between literacy partners and village management committees in 2006, UNICEF gave its agreement…and the Autonomous Literacy Service was chosen for the publishing of textbooks for teaching reading and writing to child cattle herders,” Fofana told IPS.

The books are sold for about two dollars each, he added.

The start of the 2007/2008 academic year for child cattle herders is scheduled for January, a period after the harvests where there is less agricultural work, and parents receive money for their crops – enabling them to buy textbooks for their children.

“With the support of the WFP (World Food Programme), canteens will be opened” when the new academic year gets underway, said Fofana.

He added that the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation also planned to set up water points to enable farm animals to drink, and to purchase fodder to feed livestock while the children worked their own ground.

These initiatives will prevent animals from wandering off, said Fofana, allowing learners peace of mind while pursuing their studies or cultivating their land.

In the long term, he added, efforts to teach child cattle herders to read and write would extend over the whole country.

Excerpt:

By Aly Ouattara
KORHOGO, Northern Côte d'Ivoire, Sep 11 2007 (IPS)

When the failed coup of September 2002 led to a prolonged period of isolation for northern Côte d’Ivoire, farmers in this rebel-held region counted the cost.

As IPS reported earlier this year, government veterinary services in the north were curtailed, with dire results for livestock (see ‘COTE D’IVOIRE: A Shot in the Arm for the Northern Livestock Sector’). Those farmers cultivating crops, meanwhile, found themselves without the fertilizers needed for good yields.

The conflict also had another, somewhat more positive effect on northern agriculture, however: opening the eyes of certain crop farmers to the benefits of rotation farming with soya, a practice that enriches the soil.

“On the advice of my eldest son, an agriculture student, I planted soya for the first time in 2003, when the war was underway in Côte d’Ivoire and we could no longer get fertilizer for our usual crops, which are maize and yams,” Aminata Doumbia, a farmer from Odiénné in the north-west, told IPS.

She found that soya improved the quality of her land, setting the stage for good harvests of other crops planted the year after. Since then, Doumbia has alternated soya cultivation with farming different crops.

Korotoumou Traoré, a farmer at Ferkessedougou in the far north of Côte d’Ivoire, tells a similar tale.

“I cultivated soya for the first time between 2004 and 2005, at the time of the war in Côte d’Ivoire when there was no fertilizer. A friend who had already done so advised me to plant soya,” he told IPS. “It was then that I discovered soya could partially address the problem of lack of fertilizer.”

Yacouba Coulibaly, a cotton producer in Odiénné, has also alternated various crops with soya, improving his yields by more than ten percent in the process, he says: “I discovered that if one alternately farms soya and other food crops in the same soil, you can do without fertilizer. Soya beings something extra to soil, but I can’t explain or show…what this is due to.”

What remains a mystery to some in northern Côte d’Ivoire is common knowledge elsewhere, however.

Soya is one of the world’s legumes: plants known for producing seeds in pods – and for the symbiotic relationship they have with nitrogen-fixing bacteria that reside in nodules on their roots.

The bacteria are able to take nitrogen critical for plant growth from the atmosphere, and incorporate it into compounds such as ammonia (nitrogen is said to be in a “fixed” form when included in one of these compounds). This benefits not only the host legume, but also the surrounding soil – and plants grown on this land at a later date that do not live symbiotically with bacteria, such as the cereals which are a staple of the Ivorian diet.

“For many poor farmers, BNF (biological nitrogen fixation) is a viable, cost-effective alternative or complementary solution to industrially manufactured nitrogen fertilizers,” Eric Kueneman of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) was quoted as saying in a press release issued after a 2001 FAO meeting on BNF.

“Most BNF technologies have the potential to generate global environmental benefits by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and water pollution, protecting biodiversity and promoting more sustainable use of agricultural land.”

In a sense, the word of mouth about soya in northern Côte d’Ivoire amounts to a second debut for the crop in this region. The 1970s had already seen a programme concerning the plant, Project Soya, get underway at the initiative of the agriculture ministry – this to address protein deficiencies amongst Ivorians. Soya is widely viewed as being a very good source of protein, and is even said to be useful in fighting cancer.

Soya was experimented with in the western region of Touba, Odiénné in the north-west, and Dikodougou in the north, with about 2,000 hectares put under cultivation in each of these areas.

However, “This project unhappily failed, mainly because Ivorian communities saw soya as a food to which one turned only in times of hunger,” Namogo Tuo, former manager of Project Soya in Dikodougou, told IPS. As the West African country was not in dire straits concerning its food supply, soya did not gain popularity.

Eating habits also proved an obstacle. “Ivorian communities were not used to this type of food, and did not include it in their diet,” Tuo noted.

He believes there is scope for relaunching Project Soya, if not to address nutrition problems, then to help restore land in the north, centre and west that has since become depleted – and is succumbing to degradation.

Tiébena Soro, an agricultural engineer and specialist in legumes, would seem to agree. “If you want the subsistence farmer of the north to remain on his ground and not go in search of the more fertile lands of the south, you must teach him to preserve his land.”

Diversifying crops with soya – or other legumes such as beans or peanuts – is, he adds, “a basic solution that does not require many resources”. Soya grows in temperate and tropical conditions.

The events of 2002 led to civil conflict that split Côte d’Ivoire into a rebel-controlled north and government-held south. The rebel forces behind the failed coup accused government of marginalising northern communities, and residents of foreign descent.

Earlier this year (Mar. 4), a peace accord was signed in the Burkinabé capital of Ouagadougou, and rebel leader Guillaume Soro named prime minister of a power-sharing government.

President Laurent Gbagbo has spoken of elections being held before the end of 2007.

However, there are concerns about lack of progress with disarmament efforts, integration of rebels into the main army and the provision of nationality and voting documents to people in the north – issues that must be resolved if a free and fair poll is to be held.

Excerpt:

By Aly Ouattara
FERKE, Northern Côte d'Ivoire, Aug 26 2007 (IPS)

Efforts to resolve the long-running political crisis in Côte d’Ivoire appear to be yielding progress; however, certain traders in land-locked countries to the north are still hesitant to bank on the peace process, and resume use of Ivorian ports.

In 2002, Côte d’Ivoire was split into a rebel-held north and government-controlled south, effectively cutting links between ports and northern states. The division occurred after a failed coup staged by rebel troops who accused authorities of marginalising people in the north, as well as residents of foreign origin.

A peace accord was signed in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, in March. Rebel leader Guillaume Soro was subsequently appointed prime minister in a power-sharing government, and a United Nations buffer zone between north and south dismantled. President Laurent Gbagbo has also spoken of holding elections before the end of the year.

Nonetheless, Malian trader Aboubacar N’diaye is cautious about going back to conducting business as he did before the split.

“After the crisis began in Côte d’Ivoire in 2002, we had more than eight million tonnes of goods blocked at the port of Abidjan,” he told IPS. N’diaye said the Malian government had been obliged to sign agreements with countries such as Ghana and Togo – east of Côte d’Ivoire – to provide alternative routes for the goods. From these countries, freight could be taken through Burkina Faso en route to Mali.

“This transit through Ghana and Burkina Faso cost us a lot of money, some three billion CFA francs (about six million dollars); and, businesspeople who were not financially secure went bankrupt. I’m…not ready yet to relive such an adventure,” he added, at the end of a recent fact-finding trip to Abidjan, which is also the Ivorian economic capital.

Instead, N’diaye prefers to wait until matters in Côte d’Ivoire have returned to normal before using ports in this West African country again. Côte d’Ivoire’s second most important port is San Pedro, in the south-west of the country.

Inoussa Maïga, a Nigerien who exports onions to Côte d’Ivoire, emphasises that the strife in this state did not only take a toll on traffic making its way to and from Ivorian ports – but also on other forms of cross-border trade.

“The importance of commercial relations between Côte d’Ivoire and Niger is not only in terms of port transit, but also in exchanges of Ivorian manufactured goods and products from the Nigerien agriculture sector.”

“Any malfunction in Ivorian industry has direct repercussions for Nigerien economic activities,” he adds, citing the importance of products such as vegetable oil, construction materials, butane gas, soap and plastic goods that Nigeriens import from Côte d’Ivoire.

Maïga says the Ivorian market offers a large outlet for Nigerien products such as onions, and for the sale of cattle from Niger. More than 30 percent of Nigerien onions are exported to Côte d’Ivoire, he notes: “We keep hoping that Côte d’Ivoire will rapidly return to peace, because onions are a highly perishable product. The smallest slowing of their sales could have serious economic consequences for Nigerien traders and producers.”

Maïga, too, is waiting for normality to resume in Côte d’Ivoire before continuing use of the country’s ports.

For retired Ivorian economist Bakary Méité, such hesitations are justified. “The continental Sahelian countries like Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger were…affected by the socio-political crisis in Côte d’Ivoire…” he said, noting that 75 percent of imports to these countries are channelled through Abidjan’s port facilities.

These views are echoed by another economist, Emmanuel Digbeu, who is based in the Ivorian political capital of Yamoussoukro.

In addition, he says, “This crisis revealed a certain lack of foresight on the part of traders in land-locked Francophone countries of the Sahel, which had never thought to look for a diversification of their sources of supplies.”

Accordingly, Digbeu has suggested that these states consider strategies to help them make use of alternative ports.

According to port authorities in Abidjan, freight exchanged between Côte d’Ivoire and countries of the Sahel declined dramatically as a result of the political difficulties, going from about 1.4 million tonnes in 2002 to just over 200,000 tonnes in 2003 – a decrease of 85.4 percent.

For Burkina Faso, the main foreign client for the port of Abidjan, it fell from 27,719 tonnes in 2003 to 471 tonnes in 2002, or by some 94 percent.

In a bid to renew trading ties, port officials started holding meetings in Côte d’Ivoire’s land-locked neighbours towards the end of July.

Speaking in Ouagadougou, the director of the port of Abidjan, Marcel Gossio, noted that there would be a resumption of escorts for convoys travelling between Sahelien countries and Ivorian ports.

Those using Ivorian roads are often subject to extortion by security forces, both soldiers under rebel control, and troops loyal to the government.

“It’s…better if the port of Abidjan can enable us to conduct our activities in peace,” said Seydou Samaké, a Malian importer of fuel. “With Côte d’Ivoire, we have many advantages that the crisis interrupted. But we think that with the latest decisions to be taken, we will consider returning there.”

Excerpt:

By Aly Ouattara
KORHOGO, Northern Côte d'Ivoire, Aug 3 2007 (IPS)

No more grass for livestock to graze on. No more water, either. More than 50 stock animals dead. For farmer Samba Diallo, staying in Burkina Faso was no longer an option.

“If I had not left my village, Dori, in northern Burkina Faso, I would have lost my entire herd,” he told IPS. And so, like other farmers from his country – also Mali and Niger – Diallo migrated south to Côte d’Ivoire, setting up a new home in the northern village of Dikodougou four years ago with more than 1,000 head of cattle and 500 head of sheep. “Nature is much more forgiving” in Côte d’Ivoire, he says.

Not so his new neighbours.

Like many migrating stock breeders, Diallo has found himself at odds with settled crop farmers whose harvests are often destroyed by travelling herds. At worst, these disagreements can escalate into deadly conflicts.

Diallo blames his difficulties on the herdsmen he employs to oversee his livestock, saying they don’t always guide the animals to pasture areas designated by land owners – this through laziness or a taste for mischief.

Yaya Sekongo, once a farmer in Bada Farakoro in northern Côte d’Ivoire, has also experienced problems with herdsmen.

“One afternoon, in the middle of the cotton harvest…we were invaded by a herd of cattle. The animals started to graze on the cotton without any herdsman trying to make them leave,” he told IPS.

“I called out to one of them, and he forbade me, in a threatening tone, from touching his animals…I started to chase the cattle. Then, the herdsmen took out their machetes and a fight started between them and us.”

Three of Sekongo’s children and workers were seriously injured in the clash, which took place five years ago.

“The incident was referred to the local administrator…who sent us to the courts,” he recounted. But with the owner of the cattle said to have returned to his country, the matter never went to trial, added Sekongo – who found himself obliged to earn a living through business after this incident.

Nawa Traoré and Lobèko Ouattara, two farmers’ wives, tell of a similar experience in which they found cattle feeding on their crops in the middle of the night. The women fired on the animals, and tied up the herdsmen.

“We decided to get involved…because the actions of stock farmers have harmful consequences for the lives of our families,” said Traoré.

Having a herd of livestock strip a field can be financially ruinous, noted Ouattara: “Families have abandoned farming. Some have had to take their children out of school because of a lack of money to pay for school fees. Divorces have even taken place because of the lack of food.”

The courts did not agree with the two women meting out justice: both have just completed a six-month prison term for their actions.

But, with stock farmers accused of corrupting officials to escape paying for destruction to harvests, crop farmers do sometimes take the law into their own hands; they illegally detain or kill animals, said Korono Silué, a crop farmer at Kaouara in the far north of Côte d’Ivoire.

He does not believe that herdsmen are the only people at fault when crops become grazing grounds.

“We accuse herdsmen of being at the root of the conflicts between stock breeders and crop farmers, but in reality they act with the blessing of their boss – the owner of the livestock, who asks them to lead animals towards…areas where there are plants, so that the animals eat properly,” he said.

Silué also has another bone to pick with stock farmers, whom he accuses of failing to pay all the money owed for use of village water reserves.

The farmers are often asked to pay about 20 cents per head of cattle, with the money going for maintenance of dams.

While the farmers do make payments initially, they stop doing so after a few days; village committees responsible for the water sources then track them down, said Silué.

Parliamentarian Abou Coulibaly Nibi, from Korhogo, says crop farmers must be vigilant concerning the herds, and alert authorities to any unauthorised movement of stock farmers.

He further advocates accelerating the compensation process, to ensure that stock farmers are less able to slip away without paying for the damage wrought by their herds.

But, Nibi also strikes a note of pragmatism, saying the migration of farmers is an age-old occurrence that would be difficult to end completely.

“The cattle will continue to flood into Côte d’Ivoire each year. We should simply…limit the intensity of armed conflicts between stock farmers and crop farmers, as the crop farmer will always have need of the cattle of the stock breeder – and the stock farmer will himself also have need of the products of the crop farmer.”

Excerpt:

By Aly Ouattara
KORHOGO, Northern Côte d'Ivoire, Jul 8 2007 (IPS)

Sogbéné Soro claims to be able to treat a variety of ailments: leprosy, diarrhea and ringworm to name a few. But, this traditional healer is finding it increasingly difficult to ply his trade. “I am faced with a shortage of certain plant species that have medicinal properties,” he told IPS.

Communities and loggers have destroyed the forests near Soro’s northern village where, some 15 years ago, he was able to gather the roots, leaves, bark and herbs that he makes use of. Now Soro is forced to travel much greater distances, either by motorbike or by car, to find the tools of his trade.

In addition, the encroachment on forests has caused wild animals – which healers also make use of – to become more elusive.

“Today we are faced, in the village of Koyadougou in north-western Cote d’Ivoire, with the scattering of certain animal species, of which certain parts have healing qualities,” explains Inza Fofana, a traditional healer and hunter.

“The meat and the fat of the lion, for example, help to treat fractures and ease joint pain and rheumatism. The sperm of the elephant treats impotence; the horn of the rhinoceros treats asthma.”

Surrounded by small bottles and plastic sachets filled with powders and liquids extracted from plants, Soro notes that he has been obliged to raise his prices somewhat, to cover transport costs.

Needless to say, this has not been welcomed by his clients, even if the prices of traditional remedies remain much lower than those of modern medicines – where these are available.

For the past few years, Côte d’Ivoire has been embroiled in a civil conflict that split the country into a rebel-held north and government-controlled south – the violence sparked by a failed coup in September 2002. The rebel New Forces (Forces Nouvelles) had accused government of marginalising people in the north of the country, as well as residents of foreign descent.

The conflict caused doctors and care providers – for the most part government officials – to flee the north, and pharmacies to close. Communities in this region also found themselves more reliant on traditional healers.

Several environmental groups have condemned the over-exploitation of the West African country’s forests.

According to the Ivorian Ecological Group (Groupe écologique ivoirien, GECI), a non-governmental organisation (NGO) based in the financial hub of Abidjan, of the 16 million hectares of forests that existed in Côte d’Ivoire at the start of the 1960s, just six million remain today.

Jacob N’Zi, executive director of the GECI, notes further that while 123 businesses are operating in the lumber industry, only two respect the legislation in place to protect forests. Timber companies do not observe the government quota of 2,000 to 10,000 cubic metres of wood per year, he says.

Kouadio Gnamien, a member of another NGO, Ecologia, claims this wrongdoing cost the state more than 400 million dollars between 2003 and 2006 – but that authorities also bear some responsibility for the current state of affairs.

A peace accord was signed in the Burkinabé capital of Ouagadougou four months ago, and rebel leader Guillaume Soro was later named prime minister in a power-sharing government for the country. The United Nations buffer zone between north and south was also dismantled.

However, the peace process in Côte d’Ivoire suffered a blow at the end of last month when rockets were fired at a plane transporting the prime minister in the central town of Bouake.

While Soro emerged from the attack unscathed, upwards of three people were reported to have died in the incident.

Observers noted that the attack might reflect dissatisfaction in the New Forces about the direction of the peace process, notably Soro’s decision to take on the post of prime minister under President Laurent Gbagbo.

Excerpt:

By Aly Ouattara
KORHOGO, Northern Côte d'Ivoire, Jun 27 2007 (IPS)

As Côte d’Ivoire tries to pick up the pieces after five years of civil war, efforts are getting underway to deal with a notable casualty of the conflict: the health of livestock in the north, formerly under rebel control.

Starting next month and ending January 2009, about three million stock animals will be vaccinated by authorities, with financial assistance from the European Union. During the war, government controls for maintaining the care of farm animals in northern Côte d’Ivoire collapsed – while much of the equipment used in these controls was destroyed. This led to a decline in the health of livestock, and a knock-on effect concerning the wellbeing of communities.

“Today, there is no assurance that the livestock produced or consumed in the north is of good quality. However, people eat it, in large part” said Bakary Cissé, a veterinarian at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation who is responsible for implementing the project.

The livestock market outside the northern town of Korhogo, called a “Garbal” in the local Peule language, serves as an illustration of how badly things have gone awry.

Once known for its lively character, the market is today just a shadow of its former self, and the nearby municipal area where livestock is kept en route to market, half empty. Those animals which are there, are skeletal.

“The animals are suffering from peri-pneumonia,” said Cissé, explaining that this is a contagious and fatal bovine lung disease that is transmitted from one animal to another, but also from animal to man, like tuberculosis, brucellosis and anthrax.

Brucellosis, also known as undulant fever or Malta fever, is a bacterial disease that brings on a number of ailments – including a fever that rises and falls (or undulates). Anthrax, a potentially deadly illness, is also caused by bacteria. It can attack the lungs, intestines and nervous system.

“These illnesses are killing more and more livestock, and present a serious, permanent risk for the population,” Cissé told IPS, noting that the loss of animals could also compromise food security in the north over the long term.

“Brucellosis amongst animals results in the abortion of foetuses in the females during the third or fourth month before birth. Herdsmen, who are in permanent contact with the animals, often have sexual difficulties,” he said.

“Worse, their wives experience spontaneous abortions,” Cissé added, noting that occurred as a result of the “consumption of milk and meat from an animal that has not been well cooked”.

“As for cases of tuberculosis, they are caused by drinking fresh cow’s milk,” he observed, in reference to the consumption of unpasteurised milk.

Dieudonné Coulibaly, a doctor at Ferkessédougou Central Hospital, in the north, told IPS that the facility always advised people to boil milk before drinking it.

“But, we have…often noted that people drink it while it is fresh (unpasteurised)…under the pretext of preserving its flavour. This practice causes them to contract tuberculosis. The tuberculosis patients that we receive at the hospital are normally Peuls.” (Members of the Peul ethnic group are traditionally stock farmers.)

Moussa Diallo, a stock farmer at Kaouara in the far north, says he has tried to care for his livestock during Côte d’Ivoire’s political crisis with the help of veterinary medicines bought at Bobo-Dioulasso and Ouagadougou, in neighbouring Burkina Faso.

“Thanks to these products, said to be counterfeit – some of which are sold here – I did not have deaths in my herds,” he told IPS.

Daouda Coulibaly, however, had a far less positive experience.

“During the five years of war, we have lost a great many cattle and sheep at Toumoukoro and Zanatinvogo (in the Korhogo region) because of counterfeit medicines bought in the area, (that were) often…impure and poisonous,” said the stock breeder, who is also president of the Management Committee of Bovine and Ovine Commercial Organisations in Korhogo.

“As the country was divided in two, we could not obtain veterinary medicines from Abidjan (the economic capital). We were obliged to buy products found in the area, whatever the origin and quality (of these goods).”

The 122 million dollar vaccination initiative will hopefully relieve Coulibaly – and many others – of the need to experiment with dubious drugs.

Côte d’Ivoire was split into a rebel-held north and government-controlled south after a failed coup on Sep. 19, 2002 – with rebels accusing government of marginalising people in the north, and residents of foreign extraction.

After a number of unsuccessful attempts at peace, an accord was signed in the Burkinabé capital of Ouagadougou Mar. 4.

Rebel leader Guillaume Soro has been named prime minister of a power-sharing government, and a United Nations buffer zone between north and south dismantled. Disarmament is also said to have got underway.

Excerpt:

By Aly Ouattara
KORHOGO, northern Côte d'Ivoire, May 2 2007 (IPS)

For Katienéfoha Yéo, two decades of cotton farming that resulted in nothing but debt were enough to get him on the road, out of Tanikaha in northern Côte d’Ivoire to Sarala in the west.

“At Tanikaha I worked the land for more than 20 years without ever managing to own the least thing. Almost all my agricultural seasons ended with significant (harvest) shortfalls because the soil was no longer good (fertile),” he told IPS.

In 2000 Yéo finally left his village of Korhogo to set up a new home in the Fouyagôrô encampment in the region of Sarala, where land is still productive.

Since then the man who was once in debt to cotton companies for fertilizer and pesticides has built two houses: “I rebuilt the house of my father in a more proper way in the village, and I built (a house) for myself and my family. Before, I lived in a hut on depleted land.”

The good harvests that that his new fields have regularly produced even enabled Yéo to buy a vehicle to transport goods by road between Korhogo and Sarala.

He is one of tens of thousands of farmers who have moved into regions of centre-west and western Côte d’Ivoire over recent years, establishing new villages and encampments. “Youths who’re leaving the savannahs of the north…are to a certain extent forced to do this, as their land has become unproductive and agricultural yields almost negligible,” Siriki Yéo, chief of the village of Yèkaha in western Côte d’Ivoire, told IPS.

The improved farming conditions that migrants find come at a cost, however, as farmers are settling in forested areas that should remain uninhabited for the conservation of natural resources.

Additional forest areas are occupied every day says Benoît Cinan Soro, director of Rural Activities of Korhogo (Animation rurale de Korhogo, ARK), a non-governmental organisation that defends the rights of subsistence farmers.

He also warns that newly-occupied forests will experience the same environmental destruction as areas that migrants have left behind in about 20 years, if reforestation is not resumed as a matter of urgency.

Political difficulties have proved an obstacle in this regard.

A rebellion in 2002 led to Côte d’Ivoire being divided in two, with rebels occupying the northern half of the country. They claimed to be fighting the marginalisation of people living in this part of the nation.

After several failed attempts at peace an agreement was signed about two months ago that provides for the creation of a new administration, joint military command between rebels and officials, and elections within the next year. Until recently, however, war has taken precedence over environmental concerns – notably in rebel-held areas.

The most recent attempt at reforestation in northern Côte d’Ivoire dates back to 2000 at Dolékaha in the Karakoro region. It was carried out by the environmental ministry when the country was still unified.

Land degradation in the north has turned to desertification in certain areas, particularly Napiélédougou, Tiorniaradougou, Karakoro, Sinematiali and Korhogo, where firewood and charcoal have also become scarce.

“Communities have…started to use the stems of millet, cotton and sorghum or maize to cook their meals,” reports Roger Gaoussou Soro, an ARK activities co-ordinator who is in charge of environmental protection.

A start to reforestation has taken place in other parts of the country: the environment ministry and the Society for Forest Development (Société pour le développement de la forêt) have launched initiatives in the south, which government has been overseeing.

But these initiatives have not produced the anticipated results, because communities have not been included in them.

When questioned, the inhabitants of these settlements say they’re more interested in fruit trees that provide a direct profit than trees that restore life to an ecosystem, for which “they do not see the immediate importance” Mathias Dago, a former regional director at the Ministry of the Environment, Water and Forests, told IPS.

Notes Gaoussou Soro, “Unfortunately, what most often happens in these villages is that after the departure of persons involved with reforestation, the villagers – not seeing the usefulness of the trees that have been planted – destroy them when they farm.”

And while environmental officials and activists try to save forests, farmers like Jérome Kolotiolona Ouattara still believe they have no option but to start farming in these areas.

Here, the cashew nut and cotton producer explains, you can “plant seed after having cut down the undergrowth – and the payoff is immediate, clearly greater than in the north where you put in a lot of work to produce a small yield.”

Excerpt:

By Aly Ouattara
KORHOGO, Northern Côte d'Ivoire, Dec 5 2006 (IPS)

While there may be no such thing as a free lunch, people living in the north of Côte d’Ivoire have come close. For the past four years, free water and electricity have been supplied to citizens in this region, an area under rebel control.

The New forces (Forces Nouvelles) are now making another attempt to get people to pay for the services, as small businesses and factories have been doing since 2004. But, their prospective customers seem distinctly unwilling to cough up the cash.

“We’re going to chase water and electric company bill collectors away from our homes, because as long as there is war and the country remains divided we’re not going to pay these bills,” says Yves Silué, a shopkeeper at Trengrela market in the far north.

“It’s an agreement that was made at the very beginning of the war, and we were supported and encouraged in this by the rebels,” he adds, in reference to how the Forces Nouvelles initially gave the green light to free services, this in a bid to muster public support.

Soungalo Tuo, unemployed – and from Niakaramadougou in the centre of the country – is also upset about the latest development.

“It’s very hard to pay these bills because I haven’t received a salary in four years. My wife now pays the family expenses, thanks to her small business,” he notes. Adding water and electricity bills to these costs, Tuo says, “could destroy our household”.

Officials from the Ivorian Electricity Company (Compagnie ivoirienne d’électricité, CIE) are unmoved by such protestations, however – as with those from the Water Distribution Company of Côte d’Ivoire (Société de distribution d’eau de la Côte d’Ivoire, SODECI): they intend to use all means necessary to collect on their bills. These are intended to compensate for losses incurred during the country’s civil conflict, which began in 2002 in the wake of a failed coup that saw Côte d’Ivoire divided into a rebel-held north and government-controlled south.

“We are awaiting authorisation from the Forces Nouvelles to begin sending out…accounts dated January to December 2006,” Aristide Yao, an assistant to the CIE regional director for the north, told IPS. “If a customer doesn’t pay his bill, we’re going to cut him off by removing his meters.”

An agreement signed in January this year by Forces Nouvelles leaders and officials from CIE and SODECI states that people will have to pay for services used in 2006.

Attempts to collect on accounts issued in 2005 ended in failure.

But Françoise Mamou Doukouré, an attorney in the commercial capital – Abidjan – says the rebels have little choice but to oversee another effort at enforcing payment. “If the Forces Nouvelles don’t act in this way, they’ll have a hard time controlling them (people living in areas under rebel control) when they have to suspend free services,” she noted, looking ahead to a post-conflict Côte d’Ivoire.

Similar words come from Mamadou Kanigui Soro, head of the civilian cabinet that the rebels have established in the northern town of Korhogo (a military cabinet also exists): “This active involvement of the Forces Nouvelle aims to reintegrate people into the usual system of paying bills that existed before the war – because if we’re able to rise to power, people are going to have to pay for what they use.”

According to Yao, rates vary between 1.5 and two dollars for water, and from four to 20 dollars for electricity – payable every two months.

During the four years of rebel control, infrastructure has deteriorated considerably in the north. Water and electricity supplies are often interrupted, at great inconvenience to consumers.

According to officials at CIE and the SODECI, payment for services is essential to the replacement and maintenance of infrastructure.

“Our officials estimate that we cannot send spare parts to areas of the country where consumers do not pay for what they have used. The four-year free service and the pillaging of our equipment and logistics caused enormous losses of nearly 30 million dollars,” said Yao.

“In Boundiali and Bouna in the extreme north, four transformers and a…power plant, destroyed by lightning in June 2006, have never been repaired or replaced. This has caused some people to live without electricity.”

Not all members of the public are unsympathetic to these arguments.

“Consumers have to try to pay their bills because we cannot continue to use water and electricity for free…People have to pay so that we can maintain existing equipment,” Zoumana Sako, a teacher at Modern High School (Lycée moderne) in Korhogo, told IPS.

Kouassi Kouadio, SODECI’s technical director for the northern region, says that after the bills are issued, customers will be given a breathing space to get their accounts in order. But, “When the grace period expires, we will move ahead with cutting off running water by removing the meters.”

SODECI has more than 45,000 clients in the north of the country; water is on tap every second day in the various towns under rebel control.

Officials from SODECI and CIE say that they will also continue efforts to raise awareness of the need to pay for services, this with the assistance of civilian managers deployed by the Forces Nouvelles.

“By negotiating we’ll lead consumers to see how urgent it is to pay these bills,” Kouadio told IPS.

The Forces Nouvelles claim to have taken up arms to fight against discrimination against people in northern Côte d’Ivoire by those in south. A number of truces have been declared ahead of planned elections; however, these polls have now been postponed twice.

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By Aly Ouattara
KORHOGO, Northern Cote d'Ivoire, Oct 26 2006 (IPS)

Four years after a military and political crisis divided the education system of Cote d’Ivoire, the country has finally found a way to make all schools begin their academic year at the same time again.

The synchronised start to the school year was disrupted when the rebel New Forces (Forces Nouvelles) took control of the north of the country after an attempted coup in 2002 – alleging discrimination against those living in the north.

The Ivorian minister of education and the rebels reached agreement on a common academic year after two years of intense negotiations conducted at the initiative of groups that are assisting Cote d’Ivoire with education – namely the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.

“Now, it is still possible to for us to achieve reconciliation through education,” said Education and Basic Training Minister Michel Amani N’guessan. He was speaking at a traditional preparatory meeting for the beginning of school held earlier this month at the Sainte Marie de Cocody high school, in the commercial capital of Abidjan.

The newly synchronised start of the latest academic year has enabled students displaced into government-controlled areas by fighting to return en masse to their home towns, now occupied by rebels, to re-enroll in their former schools.

“In one or two weeks, we’ll be able to tell exactly how many students registered. But relative to previous years, we’re going to see progress,” said Kanigui Soro, an official from a New Forces committee that deals with schools and examinations.

However, while all schools opened their doors at the same time last week, enrollment was poor in certain instances, IPS found. According to parents in areas under rebel and government control, mid-month financial woes were to blame.

“There’s no money for school supplies and to pay fees. For the moment, everyone’s waiting until the end of the month,” said Korona Tuo, a sales representative at a company in Abidjan. “We’re waiting until we get paid…before we start spending.”

Another problem is presented by the fact that classes in the north have mostly been taught by untrained volunteers over recent years, after teachers left to work in government-controlled areas.

In a bid to address this, the minister of education has ordered that applications be sought from trained teachers for schools affected by the educational “brain drain”. He has also authorised regional and departmental directors in northern, central and western zones under rebel control to appoint school principals.

N’guessan said volunteer teachers were under contracts which specified that they would not continue working when the tenured holders of their posts returned: “But the volunteer can continue to receive the subsidies he was granted from the Schools Board of Management until the end of the year.”

However, the Movement of Volunteer Teachers of Cote d’Ivoire (Mouvement des enseignants volontaires de Côte d’Ivoire, MEVCI) – which operates in the north, west and centre of the country – says the minister has also made promises about ongoing employment for volunteers that he needs to uphold.

According Souleymane Traoré, MEVCI coordinator for the north, the minister pledged to make 1,951 of the approximately 10,000 volunteers civil service workers, and to look into new job opportunities for the remaining 8,059.

“If the minister wants the start of school to take place normally, he needs to keep the promises he made to us last August,” Traoré told IPS, adding: “As long as the integration promised by the minister of the 1,951 volunteers into the civil service…(is) not considered, there will be no appointment of new teachers in our zones.”

Brahima Ouattara, inspector of primary education in Korhogo, believes the schooling problems in the north stem from other factors as well.

“The schools have never received assistance or support,” he noted. “Our problems remain the lack of teachers and the deterioration of our teaching equipment.”

Furthermore, says Salif Kinafo Touré, an inspector in Niakaramadougou, in the centre of Cote d’Ivoire, “The north has a small percentage of children in full-time education due to the lack of awareness of parents, some of whom prefer their children in the fields instead of in school.”

The campaign to enroll girls, initiated by UNICEF and taken over by school directors and educational advisors, has been successful, but there is still much to do, said Jean Francois Coulibaly, president of a school management board – and Karim Touré, a French teacher at a high school in Nielle, in the far north. (Parents often choose to give their sons preference when it comes to schooling, as it is frequently assumed that girls are destined for domestic work – and have no need of education.)

“We hope that this unified start of school will create social cohesion and will defuse the socio-political situation, which has taken an enormous toll on the psychological state of the children in particular, and on that of teachers as well,” noted Karim Touré.

Warned Ouattara, “If the powers that be aren’t careful to save education in the rebel zones, the intellectual handicap that will result will not only be limited to these areas, but could spill across the entire country.”

“The education and training of all youth will suffer.”

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By Aly Ouattara
SEGUELA, Côte d'Ivoire, Aug 23 2006 (IPS)

Poverty, civil war, fears of religious persecution: any one of these can push women to have abortions. In Côte d’Ivoire, however, all of these factors are present, leading to what some claim are substantial increases in the termination of pregnancies.

This is despite the fact that the procedure is illegal in this West African country. A 1981 law condemns those who carry out abortions and their assistants to five years imprisonment – and fines ranging from about 300 to 3,000 dollars.

Sixteen-year-old Korotoumou Bakayoko was just one victim of the perceived increase in abortions. The parents and friends of the former high school pupil gathered recently to bury her at the municipal cemetery of Séguéla – a town in the centre-west of Côte d’Ivoire.

“She died as the result of an abortion. She was three months pregnant, inconspicuously so, and had decided to end it without her parents knowing,” Massandjè Bakayoko, a cousin of the deceased, who was Muslim, told IPS.

The eldest daughter amongst five children, Bakayoko had feared her condition might bring shame on her family, as Islam frowns on pregnancy outside of marriage.

On the advice of friends, she attempted to abort her baby using tree bark, roots and pieces of glass ground into powder – but this only succeeded in making her bleed internally. Ultimately, she slipped into a coma.

The situation was worsened by the fact that the hospital in Séguéla was not able to provide her with proper care.

“She was already in a critical condition, and the hospital lacked the right medical equipment. We could not avoid the worst,” François Ignace Kobénan, a nurse who was amongst the first to treat Bakayoko, told IPS.

This absence of supplies, he added, was prompted by the years of uncertainty that followed an armed uprising of 2002 that divided the West African country into a rebel-held north and government-controlled south. The rebels took up arms to fight against the alleged exclusion of people living in the north.

“Clandestine abortions have attained dangerous levels in our hospitals during these four years of crisis, both on the rebel and government side,” says Dr Lassina Sanogo, a general practitioner at the central hospital in Bouaké, where rebels have their headquarters.

A study conducted in 2005 by a local non-governmental organisation (NGO), ‘Objectif santé’ (Goal: Health), showed that 34 percent of the 2,400 women interviewed for the survey had undergone at least one abortion.

In the north, it added, 70 percent of abortions were carried out under safe conditions on girls and women aged 13 to 24, with the agreement of their parents or partners.

“It must be noted that there are…forms of secret terminations of pregnancies which are safe, done by doctors, nurses and midwives in hospitals and maternity wards in our country and other West African countries – for big sums of money,” Zana Sanogo of the NGO ‘Programme de santé communautaire’ (Programme for Community Health), based in Korhogo in northern Côte d’Ivoire, told IPS.

Dr Logozeni Diabaté, who practices at a medical centre in the Séguéla region, estimates that the procedures can earn those who perform them between 50 and 100 dollars.

“All the world knows it, but no-one dares speak of it because Ivorian legislation – like legislation in other countries in the sub-region – bans abortion,” he noted. “It’s (just) when it goes badly that the world is informed.”

The remaining 30 percent of persons who sought abortion in the north, however, were obliged to have backstreet procedures that often led to complications, some of them fatal.

On average, three of every ten girls and women dealt with by the healers, medicine men and nurses operating as casual workers who are typically consulted in these cases died, or found themselves affected by sterility and other problems.

Aristide Kouamé Kobénan of the NGO ‘Santé pour tous’ (Health for All), based in Toumodi, a town on the edge of the buffer zone that separates rebels and government forces, highlights the role that poverty plays in abortion.

“A pregnant girl, rejected by her partner and parents, without psychological support, does not hesitate to have a clandestine abortion.”

Similar words come from Amadou Sidibé, assistant to the Ivorian minister of social affairs.

“In Abidjan (the economic capital) in the south of the country, new borns are currently found dead, wrapped in plastic and abandoned in public rubbish bins,” he told IPS.

Massive displacement of people from the north to the south of the country as a result of conflict has added to the number of clandestine abortions and abandonment of new-borns in bins and public places, say certain midwives.

“It would be better to legalise abortions, even if they are condemned by certain religions, so that they can take place under the required medical conditions, to avoid the death of young girls or women as a result of abortion – or sterility due to terminated pregnancies,” says Zana Sanogo.

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By Aly Ouattara
KORHOGO, Northern Côte d'Ivoire, Jul 3 2006 (IPS)

The planting season for cotton is fast drawing to a close in Côte d’Ivoire: Jul.10 is the cut-off date. But cotton growers in the north of the country still lack the fertilizers and pesticides essential for producing a successful crop.

Previously, the chemicals would have been distributed to growers’ organisations by cotton companies which obtained the supplies on credit, said Dossongui Diabaté: director of cooperation and credit at the Savannah Industrial Cotton Company, a regional federation of co-operatives of cotton processors.

These companies would deduct the cost of the chemicals from prices paid for raw cotton at the end of the season, to reimburse fertilizer and pesticide suppliers.

During the past four years of political instability, however, the cotton growers have mostly refused to sell their crops to the cotton companies because of arrears on payments for their raw cotton, noted Nadjin Ouattara, a manager at a regional federation of agricultural cooperatives. (Some 30 million dollars are owed.)

Instead, ”They (farmers) sold for cash at ridiculous prices within the country or to neighboring countries. With such changes in the behaviour of the cotton growers, cotton companies have become incapable of paying back the additive suppliers,” he told IPS.

Farmers sold 218,000 tons to Mali and Burkina Faso at approximately 200 dollars a ton in cash, and just 82,000 tons to Ivorian companies for 360 dollars a ton: this higher price took the form of credit at the firms, Diabaté said in an interview with IPS.

Suppliers of fertilizers and pesticides have demanded to be paid what they are owed for the 2005/2006 season, before providing chemicals for the latest cotton crop. Among the country’s five cotton companies only one has managed, since May, to distribute fertilizer and pesticides to its network of producers.

Agriculture minister Amadou Gon has reportedly indicated that government will pay the debts of companies in difficulty, while a Jun. 21 press release from the cabinet pledged some nine million dollars “for the smooth operation of the cotton season.”

According to the release, President Laurent Gbagbo has also asked the minister of agriculture to begin a study on the cotton industry that would include a plan for restructuring the sector financially.

While government attempts to get fertilizers and pesticides to farmers, others have spotted commercial opportunity in the supply crisis.

“The merchants go to Abidjan (the economic capital) to pay cash for the additives to the same suppliers as the cotton companies deal with. Then, they resell these products at prices the growers find reasonable compared to the prices the cotton companies sell them for on credit,” Ali Zerbo, a merchant at Korhogo market in the north, told IPS.

“A bag of fertilizer (of 50 kilogrammes) costs 10,250 CFA francs (about 20.5 dollars) from a neighborhood merchant, compared to 13,000 CFA francs (26 dollars) on credit from the cotton companies.”

And, it doesn’t end there.

“Because they need the money, the cotton farmers resell these same chemicals…to itinerant merchants who visit the country’s hamlets and villages with wads of money during the growing season,” Abdoudramane Sangaré, a seller of chemical products at the Boundiali market, northeast of Korhogo, told IPS.

During the following season, these merchants will again sell the same additives to cotton growers at somewhat more expensive prices – but always lower than the cotton companies’ prices, he added.

In the course of a meeting of the Korhogo regional council last month, Gon said his department would do everything in its power to intervene with chemical suppliers so that the growers would be able to salvage the 2006/2007 season.

Désiré Kambiré, president of a growers’ cooperative in Ferkessedougou, in the north, isn’t overly optimistic about the outcome of such efforts, however.

“Even if the fertilizer arrives, those who began to sow from the second of May will have a good season, compared to those of us whose fertilizer arrives tremendously late.”

Ouattara sounds an even gloomier note, claiming that it is already too late to ensure a good cotton crop with the addition of fertilizer: “The result: cotton production will decrease considerably in quantity and quality, and the cotton industry of Côte d’Ivoire will only regress.”

Cotton growing is the lifeblood of more than a million people in the West African country. The farming is largely located in the north, north-east and centre of the country, where the various cotton companies are also based.

Since an abortive coup in September 2002, Côte d’Ivoire has been divided into a rebel-held north and government-controlled south. Troops in the northern half of the country took up arms to protest alleged discrimination against inhabitants of the region.

Efforts are underway to disarm both parties to the conflict ahead of presidential elections scheduled for Oct. 30.

Excerpt:

By Aly Ouattara
KORHOGO, Northern Côte d'Ivoire, May 26 2006 (IPS)

The political crisis in Côte d’Ivoire, sparked by a failed coup in 2002, is further disrupting the registration of children born in areas under rebel control.

This West African country has been divided in two since the attempted takeover, with the rebel-held north separated from the government-controlled south by a buffer zone which United Nations and French troops patrol. The coup was staged by mutineering soldiers who took up arms to protest against the alleged marginalisaion of the north, by southerners.

While government offices in northern Côte d’Ivoire closed after the Sep. 19, 2002 coup attempt, inquiries by IPS indicate that authorities are still keeping records in various towns and rural settlements under rebel control. Provisional birth certificates are issued, as well as copies of certificates for pupils who are sitting exams in government-supervised areas.

However, these documents are not recognised by authorities in the south. Lesson Sanogo, a student at the University of Abidjan-Cocody, and Yédé Silué – a teacher from Guiembé, in the north – told IPS that they were forced to obtain other birth certificates in the commercial centre of Abidjan when those issued in rebel areas were rejected.

Birth registration had already been on an uncertain footing for several decades before the events of 2002.

According to Abou Coulibaly, parliamentarian for the Korhogo constituency in the north, the failure to register births in Côte d’Ivoire – particularly in northern areas – stemmed from a lack of training and of raising awareness among village populations concerning the importance of registration.

Yéo Alama, a farmer in the village of Fonnovogo, says the indifference shown by municipal officials before the outbreak of hostilities discouraged villagers from getting birth certificates, or national identity cards.

“Traveling long distances by bike or car, and then being confronted by deferments or repetitive meetings without ever obtaining the document, leads to the villager becoming discouraged,” he explained to IPS.

“In addition, the villager must leave his work to register the birth of a newborn or obtain a national identity card, which does not seem to him to be important.”

This issue has taken on particular significance of late, with a week-long pilot project to provide people with identity papers in preparation for a presidential election scheduled to be held by Oct. 31. The programme got underway May 18 in various regions.

About 3.5 million people in Côte d’Ivoire are without papers, of which close to two million are in the north of the country, according to the National Institute of Statistics.

Reports indicate that members of the Young Patriots, a group that supports President Laurent Gbagbo, attempted to disrupt one of the first hearings to establish whether identity documents could be issued – held in Abidjan. The members were quoted as saying they feared migrants would try to obtain papers illegally during the registration process.

Côte d’Ivoire has long been a destination for migrants from poorer countries in the region such as Burkina Faso and Mali. These people, who now account for a large part of Côte d’Ivoire’s population, have done jobs that Ivorians considered too menial. An economic decline sparked by falling commodity prices towards the end of the last century sparked intolerance towards foreigners, however.

A 2000 constitution drawn up under General Robert Gueï, who had come to power in a 1999 coup, stated that presidential contenders had to be born of Ivorian parents. The amendment was widely viewed as a bid to prevent opposition leader Alassane Ouattara, said to have foreign parents, from contesting the 2000 presidential election ultimately won by Gbagbo. (In response to international pressure, the president last year agreed to use powers given to him under the constitution to allow Ouattara to stand for president.)

The pilot operation to issue papers took place at the same time as efforts to assemble rebel and government troops, ahead of disarmament.

However, a report issued Thursday by the New York-based Human Rights Watch alleges that human rights abuses continue to be perpetrated by rebels (known as the New Forces), government troops and pro-government militias.

“Continuing violations…and the impunity which underpins them, raise serious concerns about the potential for peaceful elections later this year,” notes the document, titled ‘”Because they have the guns…I’m left with nothing.”: The Price of Continuing Impunity in Côte d’Ivoire’.

“Unless measures to combat impunity are taken now, there could be a repeat of the experience during the 2000 presidential and parliamentary elections, when political, ethnic, and religious violence resulted in hundreds dead and injured.”

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By Aly Ouattara
BOUAKE, Feb 4 2006 (IPS)

To stem famine and counter a major reduction in rice imports, more and more farmers have been growing rice during the political crisis that has split Ivory Coast in two since 2002.

Local rice growers, assisted by the German technical corporation, GTZ, have stockpiled bags of rice at a depot in Korhogo, a town in the north of Ivory Coast. Ivorians relish rice, which is grown in small-scale farms around the country.

Tamigue Soro, a manager of a rice-growers cooperative in the north, says technical support from the Germans had been a blessing during the critical period when obtaining food was a major problem.

After a failed coup attempt Sept. 19, 2002, a group of soldiers took up arms to fight what they claimed to be discrimination against northerners. For more than three years, several attempts to mediate the crisis have failed to restore peace or reunify the country.

Eight percent of the Ivorian population grows rice on an average plot of 0.8 hectares of irrigated land, according to the Association for Rice Growing Development in West Africa.

Mountain rice, grown in the west, is planted along with other crops like cotton and soy. Once the fields are prepared, it’s followed by sowing and application of fertiliser, Tuo Seriba, assistant director of a training group connected with GTZ, told IPS.

Weeding is done by hand and farmers do not have modern equipments to thresh and harvest the rice. The growing season for different varieties of rice in Ivory Coast varies between 105 and 130 days, according to Assoumane Konate of the National Centre for Agronomic Research.

Konate, a specialist in rice production, says 28 varieties of rice are cultivated in various regions of Ivory Coast. The mountainous west accounts for 51.4 percent of total production, while the north, centre, south and the east account for 20.5, 15.3, 9.5 and 3.2 percent respectively.

Sustainable rice production in Ivory Coast is constrained in several ways. They include droughts in the savannahs, soil erosion in mountainous regions and a profusion of weeds. In addition, an insufficient and irregular supply of seeds and other production needs also hamper the industry. The absence of well-defined policies on rice production and a lack of organisation among the producers also need to be overcome, according to Ange Traore, who produced more rice than cotton in the central district of Katiola this year.

Traore prefers growing rice because cotton prices are continuing to drop on the world market as a result of subsidies offered to cotton producers in the west, including the United States.

European subsidies on exported cotton represent only 3.5 percent of the total support that the European Union grants agriculture, whereas the United States offers the greatest subsidies to their cotton producers. Between August 1999 and July 2005 the figure was 18 billion dollars, according to Oxfam, an international charity.

U.S. farmers produced almost 23.4 billion dollars worth of cotton between 1999 and 2005. Subsidies on this amount came to 86 percent.

The latest World Trade Organisation (WTO) summit held in Hong Kong in December ended with a weak commitment to guarantee the rights of developing countries to protect their producers by eliminating, by the year 2013, subsidies.

The main cotton producing countries in West Africa affected by the subsidies – Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Chad – requested an 80 percent reduction in subsidies by the end of 2006, 10 percent by the end of 2007 and their total elimination by January 1, 2009.

The United States proposed eliminating all types of export subsidies, but a WTO court decision has already required this measure when payments represent no more than 10 percent of the total amount concerned.

Sustainable rice production depends greatly on appropriate policy that will provide support for farmers, including the provision of seeds, production needs and irrigation capabilities.

Kelemory Silue, a farmer in Korhogo, has appealed to donors to open dams or other water reserves onto low-lying lands that would be arable if flooded so that more farmers could take up rice production. From a nutritional self-sufficiency point of view, the production of rice is superior to that of other grains as it can be harvested twice a year.

Donissongui Kone, a cotton producer turned rice grower in the central Bouake region, told IPS, ”Thanks to growing rice, not only are my daily meals insured but I can also make ends meet, like my children’s health needs, by selling my surplus. And I no longer have to buy imported rice”.

Kone hopes that the rice industry will be acknowledged and organised by the government so that those interested in growing their own rice can receive more help.

Besides network maintenance activities, including 25 water supply points which were rehabilitated for the production of irrigated rice in central and northern Ivory Coast, German technical advisors also helped in the construction of warehouses and threshing areas.

Improvements in rice growing allowed some relief for people in the north and the west which have been occupied by rebels. More than 3,000 hectares of land were rehabilitated over the past three years by German technical advisors in shallows or next to water storage points or dams in Korhogo, Ferkessedougou, and Boundiali – all in the north and all very poor.

The improvements to arable land allowed 27,000 tonnes of irrigated rice to be produced twice a year in the north, according to the Ivorian Bureau of Development Assistance Training.

For researcher Konate, rice growing has become more a question of survival than income producing. But it still remains a low-intensity activity in Ivory Coast when compared to other income-generating crops such as cocoa, coffee, cotton and pineapples, upon which the country’s economy rests.

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