The Government could thus benefit from the in-depth studies of competent people and obtain pertinent conclusions and analyses that could serve as a solid basis for concerted action aimed at ensuring Senegal's agricultural development and food security.

According to FAO DG, the FAO is currently working on all continents to deal with the global food crisis, together with Member States, development partners and other UN agencies.

The DG said while duty-bound to defend an organization of 191 member countries that he was re-elected, unopposed, to lead in 2005, he has no intention of being distracted by a controversy motivated by Senegalese domestic politics with the Head of State to whom he owes respect and esteem.

However, the DG said FAO has continued to offers technical assistance to men and women standing on their own two feet with field training activities, including the Technical Cooperation Programme (TCP) and South-South cooperation.

He said on this score 1,473 experts are made available to developing countries. He added that FAO also strengthens veterinary services against Foot and Mouth Disease, Rift Valley Fever, African Swine Fever, Contagious Bovine Pleuropneumonia, Avian Influenza, Newcastle disease, Peste des Petits Ruminants, Bluetongue disease, and plant health services through strengthening early-warning and response capacities against desert locusts and wheat stem rust.

He said that FAO also is using integrated biological control, halving pesticide quantities by 50 percent and obtaining a 15 percent increase in rice production and by disseminating hand and foot pumps, irrigation channels, small dams and metal storage silos.

Through various projects FAO continues to assist activities that increase production of rice, corn, cassava, vegetables, micro-gardens, poultry farming, small ruminants and the introduction and development of aquaculture.

Diouf said that through the establishment with WHO of 200 Codex Alimentarius, FAO has established norms to protect consumers and serve as benchmarks for resolving disputes over WTO sanitary and phytosanitary regulations.


In the first year of his mandate in June 1994, the FAO Director-General launched the Special Programme for Food Security now operational in 100 countries.

The programme priority is given to small-scale water harvesting and irrigation works by rural communities.

National programmes featuring agricultural policy measures, institutional capacity-building and investment programmes (using a village-by-village approach) were initiated in 15 countries and are under formulation in 36 more.

For 14 years the Director-General of FAO has been saying that Africa's “agricultural lottery” has to cease (96 percent of farmland is rainfed while the continent only uses 4 percent of its renewable water resources).

The DG noted that since 2001, FAO has helped many regional economic organizations elaborate regional food security programmes (RFSP): In Africa the regional food security programme of UEMOA (2002), CEDEAO (2002), SADC (2002, still to be approved), COMESA (2002), UMA (2001), IGAD (2002), CEEAC (prepared in 2003 and adopted in 2004), CEMAC (2003) and CEN SAD (under formulation).

If, as is clear from the facts, the required investments were never made, does that make FAO responsible?

Which bilateral, regional and international organizations have reduced their support to agriculture to dangerous levels? Does FAO's mandate include financing and investing in agriculture?

Agricultural specialists, economists and journalists have all analyzed the causes of the food crisis and pinpointed that agricultural production has been affected by climate change (floods, droughts, harsher winters, cyclones, hurricanes, earthquakes).

Cereals stocks stand at their lowest level since 1980 and the DG said that FAO does not have a national territory with farmland and citizens, including farmers who produce food.

Citing India and China, respectively recording 8 to 12 GDP growth , FAO boss said the two have been able to generate the income they need to improve their populations' diets.

He noted that new demand for biofuels has diverted crops from food to energy and added that FAO is not responsible for the national incentives, the subsidies and the tariff protection, used to develop the sector.

FAO's biennial budget is voted by the Conference of all its Member Nations. It amounts to the budget of the Ministry of Agriculture of South Africa.

Various countries contribute according to a United Nations scale (Senegal's share is 0.004 percent of the total).

He said FAO's accounts are regularly audited and that they have always been approved for every biennium. Between 1994/95 and 2006/07, the budget shrank 22% in real terms, staffing was cut by 24.6%, while the number of Member Nations rose from 169 to 191.

The DG said FAO is a United Nations organization whose collective, intergovernmental management system is determined and protected by international treaties guaranteeing its independence and immunity to unilateral interference by individual countries.

He added that Senegal has ratified these treaties and has undertaken to respect the Organization's statute.

Under the United Nations system, said Diouf, said agencies, funds and programmes are complementary and the Secretary-General is responsible for coordinating them.


by ASNS in Senegal
From africasciencenews.org