Chicago Standard Newspapers - Article - international news

2/1/2002 Part of the BlackPressUSA Network <!-- // Begin IMAGE rollovers function newImage(arg) { if (document.images) { rslt = new Image(); rslt.src = arg; return rslt; } } function changeImages() { if (document.images && (preloadFlag == true)) { for (var i=0; i<changeImages.arguments.length; i+=2) { document[changeImages.arguments[i]].src = changeImages.arguments[i+1]; } } } var preloadFlag = false; function preloadImages() { if (document.images) { // name of variable does not matter blank = newImage("Images/Blank.gif"); arrow = newImage("Images/menu/Arrow.gif"); arrow2 = newImage("Images/menu/Arrow2.gif"); arrowClear = newImage("Images/menu/ArrowClear.gif"); preloadFlag = true; } } preloadImages(); // end IMAGE rollovers // --> HOME NEWS national local international politics photos business releases links OP-ED LIFESTYLE SPORTS ABOUT US NETWORK SITES INTERNATIONAL NEWS West African Farmers Review Causes of Rural Poverty by staff writer nnpa Chicago Standard Newspapers Originally posted 2/1/2002 DAKAR, Senegal (PANA)-In the back row of a conference hall, a seminar participant has dreams of development in a rural area where people till the land for survival. ''How can small agricultural producers in Africa perform better than others whose farming is subsidized from the production stage up to marketing?'' Finding the right answer to this question is not kids' stuff, admits Mamadou Cissokho, chairman of a farmers' association in Senegal. ''Can we really be competitive while we are short of everything?'' he wonders as his fellow participants at the seminar could not find easy answers to his questions. They had just heard the summary of a report on rural poverty in West Africa, presented by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). IFAD, the UN agency set up in 1977 to fight hunger and rural poverty, maintains that agriculture is key to successfully improving living standards for most of the world's poor. Increased agricultural production in nearly all African countries has been difficult to sustain even during the best of times. Conflicts and intermittent long spells of drought as well as erratic rainfall have been disastrous for food security and export commodities. According to the IFAD report, out of a population of nearly 200 million in the West African region, 123 million people are poor and 70 percent of them live in rural areas. The report cites insufficient human and social capital development, inappropriate macroeconomic and sectoral policies, low farmer productivity, lack of access to capital and the slow development of rural infrastructure among other obstacles to poverty reduction. Yet, agriculture is the sector, which occupies two out of every three persons in the region, feeds 70 percent of the population and represents the first source of export earnings for most countries in the region. For the region to move forward and ease the difficult situation of the rural poor, IFAD has recommended a comprehensive regional approach that should be undertaken in harmony with the objectives of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). Opening the seminar, Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade said the days for analyses and theories are gone. ''The time has come for concrete action,'' he said, defining the poor as ''the person who is capable of producing but cannot produce for his own survival.'' Representatives of farmers' organizations at the seminar raised the real problems hampering the agriculture industry in Africa. Unilateral fixing of prices for African commodities by the Western industrial nations, they said, was a major stumbling block in accessing the international market. They insisted that African producers must have a voice in determining world market prices for their products, especially in view of the fact that farming is not subsidized by African governments. Back to Previous Page Email This Story to a Friend SEARCH Click here for anAdvanced Search Contact Us: