Mali to double rice production to curb “high cost of living”

Source: APA

Mali to double rice production to curb “high cost of living”

APA Bamako (Mali) The Malian government has decided to double the national production of rice in order to meet the national needs and face the price hike of international foodstuffs and basic commodities.

Some CFA 45 billion francs should thus be used to implement this plan initiated by the authorities in order to increase to 1.9 million tons of rice the national production of the 2008-2009 marketing year. This will be 100,000 tons more than the local consumption needs.

This project, aimed at ensuring food self-sufficiency of the country, depends primarily on subsidies for the financing of fertilier and seeds as well as on support-counselling to farming organizations.

It includes easy access to agricultural equipment and a support to the marketing system in order to encourage the bringing together of producer groups and private national economic operators.

The operation will enable the general public to easily have access to rice and allow Mali “to handle its own food needs,” the Malian Prime Minister, Modibo Sidibe, said here Friday.

A major rice producing country, Mali is also a big consumer half of whose consumption needs were up to this point covered by imports from Asian countries, Vietnam and Thailand in particular.

The Office du Niger, which is the oldest and biggest hydro-agricultural complex of sub-Saharan Africa, is the main producer of Malian rice. The French colonialists created the Office du Niger in 1932 in the lower delta of the Niger River, in Segou (centre).

AT/mn/ad/daj/APA 2008-04-18