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West African farmers get support from World Bank ahead of planting season
13.02.2015 09:58 "Agro Perspectiva" (Kyiv) —
Up to US$15 million in emergency financing for farmers in West Africa has been provided by the World Bank, UN Radio says referring to the World Bank recent report.
As to the report, this will provide 10,500 MT of maize and rice seeds to more than 200,000 farmers in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone who have been affected by the Ebola disease outbreak.
More than 9,100 people have so far died in the three hardest-hit countries.
As to the report, the support comes just in time for the April planting season.
As to the latest estimates by the United Nations more than one million people could go hungry unless they have reliable access to food.
The World Bank report shows that the Ebola crisis has taken a heavy toll on the economies of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, with the agriculture and food sectors having been hit particularly hard. «Movement restrictions severely dented farmers ability to harvest crops, market produce, prepare fields for planting and maintain a steady supply of seed for planting in the next season. Desperate farming families have resorted to eating stored seed originally intended for use in the next cropping cycle, while rural flight has caused harvest-ready crops to wither in the fields,» the UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric explained.
The report admits agriculture is the lifeline of the economies of the West African countries and so by peeding up supplies of urgently needed seeds of major food crops to communities there, it is possible to reach a jump-starting recovery in rural areas and prevent what it called the «looming spectre of hunger».
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