Benin Achieves Record 2017/18 Maize Harvest

Maize production in Benin reached a record 1.6 million tons during the 2017-2018 season, compared to 1.2 million tons two years ago, according to the ministry of agriculture’s figures.

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Benin more than doubles cotton production in 2011

Cotton production in Benin increased from 130,000 tons in 2010 to 300,000 tons in 2011, news agency PANA reports, citing figures from the country’s Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries.


Statistics released by the ministry believe the area planted increased to 200,000 hectares, representing nearly 15 per cent increase over the previous season.

During the 2011-2012 campaign, the sector benefited from support through input subsidies.

African Agriculture

Chinese entrepreneurs to invest in Benin palm oil production

by Serge-David Zoueme

A delegation of Chinese agricultural engineers and entrepreneurs decided to invest at least 1 billion CFA Francs ($2.15 million) in Benin’s palm oil industry after a visit to the western African nation.

Benin has vast untapped lands that could be used to produce palm oil and increase the output of agricultural products, the state-owned Office de Radiodiffusion et Television reported, citing Geng Wenbing, Chinese ambassador to the African country and chief of the delegation.

The Chinese will invest in the industry over the next five years to increase production and mechanize the industry. Palm oil is highly sought after in China for the manufacture of various food and cosmetic products.

“The funding plan and the amount will be announced by Chinese entrepreneurs toward the end of the year,” Benin’s Minister of Agriculture Sabai Kate was cited as saying by the Cotonou-based broadcaster.

Bloomberg

More farmers turn to cultivation of moringa in Benin

by Toni Bacala

In the fields of Benin, a green revolution has placed local farmers at the forefront of the battle against malnutrition. With the establishment of Association Béninoise du Moringa (ABM), Beninese farmers have expanded the production and promotion of moringa to nourish the ailing West African nation.

Widely acclaimed as a "miracle tree," moringa is fast-growing and possesses multiple benefits, from nutritional leaves, flowers, and seeds, to drought-resistant roots and bark. Moringa leaves are usually consumed fresh in green salads, or sautéd. In health programs, leaves are dried and ground into powder, then sprinkled on any dish for instant nutritional boost.

It has been traditionally used in South and Central Asia, India, and the Middle East as livestock feed, biofuel, medicine, water purifying agent, and soil fertilizer, among many other uses.

In the mid-1990s, the US Peace Corps initiated moringa promotion in the country in keeping with nutritional campaigns all over West Africa.

Despite such assistance, however, Benin has long lagged behind in the region, as compared to Niger, which has been producing moringa as a cash crop, and Senegal, which integrated moringa into HIV/AIDS treatment in the late 1990s.

"The value of this plant cannot be downplayed as regards its possibility to address some of the Millennium Development Goals as well as to influence the ongoing debates on climate change," said Muriel Glasgow, founder of Moringa Partners, an interactive outfit of moringa growers, scientists, non-government organizations and other enthusiasts from all over the world.

Benin has had its hands full battling against malnutrition. According to UNICEF, one out of every three Beninese children below the age of five has experienced malnutrition. The country's health crisis is aggravated by recent floods that have displaced thousands of residents, devastated farms, and destroyed access to clean, potable water. Foreign agencies have stepped in with food assistance and nutrition programs, but for the people of Benin, a longer-term solution is needed.

In 2008, a pilot project in the town of Goumori drew closer attention to moringa. The first batch of moringa powder produced was sold out in one week, encouraging farmers to share their knowledge so others could grow the plant.

As communities increasingly grasped the nutritional and economic benefits of moringa, volunteers and farmers saw the need for a mechanism to manage the future of moringa in Benin. Thus, ABM was born.

"We envisioned an organization that would promote moringa on a national scale and facilitate a market for moringa thereby taking the responsibility of promoting moringa and creating a market off the farmers themselves," former US Peace Corps volunteer Christoph Herby told MediaGlobal.

Last August, the vision came to fruition at the widely participated launch of ABM.

Moringa industry in Benin has flourished notably as ABM facilitates more farmers growing moringa alongside other crops as an additional source of income, and as an affordable supplement for malnutrition.

Through ABM, efforts of farmers, which were usually confined in their own fields and villages, are stretched out to markets and other moringa producers across the country. "Ultimately the goal is to create nationwide demand for moringa powder, satisfied by a network of well-supervised moringa plantations," said Herby.

ABM sets the production standard to strategically incorporate moringa into nutrition programs. One of its key activities is conducting workshops with farmers, health workers, and students. Since its launch, there has been a spirited demand for orientation on moringa cultivation and processing, informed ABM technical assistant Patrick Starr.

Benin's health agenda has inspired the expansion of moringa networks such as Moringa Partners, which reaches out to growers from Cameroon, Ethiopia, India, Costa Rica, and the Philippines.

"On a larger scale, [the] Peace Corps is increasing its focus on food security," said Herby. "And moringa is being considered a primary component in Peace Corps' food security planning for the West Africa sub-region."

"The world is still learning about moringa," said Glasgow, optimistic that more moringa benefits will be developed as a worldwide demand is set in motion.

While ABM acknowledges that it will take years to see tangible effects of the program, the empowerment of Beninese farmers has resulted in the cultivation of hope, health, and abundance beyond quantifiable terms.

http://allafrica.com

Benin cotton output may double

by Serge-David Zoueme

Benin plans to more than double cotton output this year through increased plantings and government support for the industry, Agriculture Minister Gregoire Akofodji said.

Production is forecast to climb to 500,000 metric tons in 2010 from 242,474 tons last year, Akofodji said in an interview today from the capital, Porto Novo. Plantings may increase to 400,000 hectares (988,422 acres), from 290,000 hectares in 2009, he said.

“Cotton production may climb considerably because the government and cotton producers plan to widen the national cultivated fields,” Akofodji said. In addition, the government will provide growers with “good-quality” compost and other fertilizers to improve yields, he said.

Benin is sub-Saharan Africa’s third-biggest cotton grower, after Nigeria and Burkina Faso, according to the Web site of the Food and Agricultural Organization. The fiber accounts for 40 percent of the West African nation’s exports, according to the African Development Bank.

Output may increase even further to 600,000 tons next year because of the increased plantings and government support, Idrissou Sina Gounou, director of National Society for Promoting Agriculture, said in a phone interview.

Benin earned 33.3 billion CFA francs ($69.1 million) from cotton exports in 2008, compared with 131 billion francs a year earlier, Development Minister Pascal Irenee Koupaki said yesterday in a phone interview. Data for 2009 isn’t available yet, he said.

Businessweek

Solar-Powered irrigation significantly improves diet and income in rural sub-Saharan Africa

Solar-powered drip irrigation systems significantly enhance household incomes and nutritional intake of villagers in arid sub-Saharan Africa, according to a new Stanford University study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The two-year study found that solar-powered pumps installed in remote villages in the West African nation of Benin were a cost-effective way of delivering much-needed irrigation water, particularly during the long dry season.

"Significant fractions of sub-Saharan Africa's population are considered food insecure," wrote lead author Jennifer Burney, a postdoctoral scholar with the Program on Food Security and the Environment and the Department of Environmental Earth System Science at Stanford. "Across the region, these food-insecure populations are predominantly rural, they frequently survive on less than $1 per person per day, and whereas most are engaged in agricultural production as their main livelihood, they still spend 50 to 80 percent of their income on food, and are often net consumers of food."

Burney and her co-authors noted that only 4 percent of cropland in sub-Saharan Africa is irrigated, and that most rural, food-insecure communities in the region rely on rain-fed agriculture, which, in places like Benin, is limited to a three- to six-month rainy season.

"On top of potential annual caloric shortages, households face two seasonal challenges: They must stretch their stores of staples to the next harvest (or purchase additional food, often at higher prices), and access to micronutrients via home production or purchase diminishes or disappears during the dry season," the authors wrote.

Promotion of irrigation among small landholders is therefore frequently cited as a strategy for poverty reduction, climate adaptation and promotion of food security, they said. And while the role of irrigation in poverty reduction has been studied extensively in Asia, relatively little has been written about the poverty and food security impacts in sub-Saharan Africa.

To address the lack of data, Burney and her colleagues monitored three 0.5-hectare (1.24-acre) solar-powered drip irrigation systems installed the Kalalé district of northern Benin. The systems, which use photovoltaic pumps to deliver groundwater, were financed and installed by the Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF), a nongovernmental organization.

"As with any water pump, solar-powered pumps save labor in rural off-grid areas where water hauling is traditionally done by hand by women and young girls," the authors said. "Though photovoltaic systems are often dismissed out-of-hand due to high up-front costs, they have long lifetimes, and in the medium-term, cost less than liquid-fuel-based pumping systems."

Solar-powered pumps also can be implemented in an easily maintained, battery-free configuration, they added, "thereby avoiding one of the major pitfalls of photovoltaic use in the developing world."

In November 2007, the research team began a close collaboration with local women's agricultural groups in two villages in rural Benin. In Village A, which draws surface water from a year-round stream, researchers worked with residents to install two identical solar-powered pumping systems. In Village B, which relies on groundwater irrigation, water was pumped from 25 meters (82 feet) below the surface. Each solar-powered pumping system was used by 30 to 35 women affiliated with an agricultural group. Each woman farmed her own 120-square meter (1,292-square foot) plot. The remaining plots were farmed collectively to fund group purchases and expenses.

The researchers also chose two control villages for comparison with Villages A and B. Women's agricultural groups in the control villages continued to irrigate by hand, allowing for comparison of the solar-powered drip irrigation systems to traditional methods. "Household surveys were conducted in both treatment and control villages upon installation (November 2007) and following one year of garden operation (November 2008), and included detailed questions concerning consumption and agricultural production, as well as other socioeconomic, health and general questions," the authors wrote.


The results were striking. The three solar-powered irrigation systems supplied on average 1.9 metric tons of produce per month, including tomatoes, okra, peppers, eggplants, carrots and other greens, the authors found. Woman who used solar-powered irrigation became strong net producers in vegetables with extra income earned from sales -- significantly increasing their purchases of staples and protein during the dry season, and oil during the rainy season. During the first year of operation, the women farmers kept an average of 18 percent by weight -- 8.8 kilograms (19.4 pounds) per month -- of the produce grown with the solar-powered systems for home consumption and sold the rest in local markets.

"Garden products penetrated local markets significantly," the authors found. "Vegetable consumption increased during the rainy season (the time of greatest surplus for the women's group farmers) for the entire four-village sample of households."

Survey respondents also were asked about their ability to meet their household food needs. Seventeen percent of the project beneficiaries said they were "less likely to feel chronically food-insecure. In short, the photovoltaic drip irrigation systems had a remarkable effect on both year-round and seasonal food access," the authors said.

In terms of nutrition, vegetable intake across all villages increased by about 150 grams per person per day during the rainy season. But in villages irrigated with solar-powered systems, the increase was 500 to 750 grams per person per day, which is equivalent to 3 to 5 servings of vegetables per day -- the same as the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Recommended Daily Allowance for vegetables -- and most of this change took place in the dry season.

The research team also concluded that, despite higher up-front costs, using solar power to pump water can be more economically sustainable in the long run than irrigation systems that run on liquid fuels, such as gasoline, diesel or kerosene. "When considering the energy requirements for expanded irrigation in rural Africa, photovoltaic drip irrigation systems have an additional advantage over liquid-fuel-based systems in that they provide emissions-free pumping power," they added.

"Overall, this study thus indicates that solar-powered drip irrigation can provide substantial economic, nutritional and environmental benefits," the authors said. "With the proper support, successful widespread adoption of photovoltaic drip irrigation systems could be an important source of poverty alleviation and food security in the marginal environments common to sub-Saharan Africa."

Other co-authors of the PNAS study are Rosamond Naylor, director of Stanford's Program on Food Security and the Environment and professor of environmental Earth system science; Lennart Woltering and Dov Paternak of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in Niger; and Marshall Burke of the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California-Berkeley.

The research was supported by an Environmental Venture Projects grant from the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. The results are published in the Jan. 4, 2010, online edition of PNAS.


Science Daily

Poor storage threatens cereal harvest in Benin

Benin's cereal production is expected to be 45 percent higher than last year, but poor storage ruins an estimated 40 percent of the annual harvest, according to UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

"The same effort we are putting into production is not going into conservation," said Benin's FAO representative, Jean Prosper Koyo. "It is not enough to just produce, but the surplus needs to be stockpiled." He added: “Storage is important so that products can be processed here. We cannot export all of the raw production."

While FAO and the USAID-funded famine early warning system (FEWSNET) project cereal production declines of an average 30 percent in neighbouring Chad, Niger and Mauritania due to insufficient rains, they have predicted as of November an estimated 45-percent – or 600-ton – increase in Benin's 2009 harvest over last year's.

The next biggest increase according to FAO is in Ghana with an expected 44 percent more production than last year; the biggest drop is in Chad with an estimated 34-percent reduction.

FAO’s Koyo said FAO is financing the pilot construction of metal silos for small producers as well as three large warehouses throughout Benin for medium to large producers.

Another cause of post-harvest crop losses is farmers’ use of natural sunlight to dry their cereals pre-storage, Koyo said. “Sun is the not the best way to dry harvests. When it is done incorrectly, we expose the harvest to parasites."


IRIN

Benin diversifies agriculture away from dependence on cotton

Known for its palm oil and cotton production, Benin's agriculture sector wants to become known for high-quality rice and to quit importing rice by 2011, according to the government.

People in Benin's agriculture sector must aim high, said the Agriculture Ministry's Antonin Alavo, coordinator of agriculture diversification. "We have to nurture grand ambitions [knowing] we will achieve less. It took us 30 years to get where we did with cotton. We will not develop a new sector quickly."

Working with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the government is trying to double current rice output by 2011 by producing 2,200 tonnes (mt) of higher-yield rice seeds annually. The country imported nearly 240,000mt of rice in 2004 – the latest data available – and produced 350,000mt in 2007.

Alavo said the government wants to help farmers move beyond production. "We are taking into account the entire chain: processing, commercialization and adding value to the product."

FAO is launching a US$500,000 rice initiative to produce and distribute New Rice for Africa (NERICA) seeds. A cross between African and Asian rice seeds, they have a shorter growing cycle and have helped boost production in the region.

FAO estimates Benin is using 8 percent of available land for rice cultivation and could save $55 million and cover 70 percent of domestic demand if it invested more in rice production. "If we are producing two tonnes per hectare instead of eight [with high-yield seeds], the farmer loses," said FAO's representative, Jean Prosper Koyo.

Sub-Saharan Africa is a net importer of rice, with Nigeria, South Africa, Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire among the world's top 10 rice importers. West African rice imports reached six million tonnes in 2001 and are likely to rise to 11 million by 2010, according to FAO.

"For so long Benin has had a one-pronged agriculture policy," said the Agriculture Ministry's Alavo. "First it was palm oil, then cotton. For us it was important to find an alternative solution," he said, referring to the international fall in cotton prices and resulting slump in national cotton production.

Benin is one of Africa's largest cotton producers and exporters, along with Chad, Burkina Faso and Mali.

IRIN

Radio, video key to agricultural innovation in Africa

Two-thirds of rural women creatively applied ideas illustrated by videos demonstrating improved food processing techniques compared to less than 20 percent who attended training workshops Cotonou, Benin – Conventional media, radio and video, are powerful, accessible and relevant forces of agricultural innovation and transformation in Africa than usually considered, a study published in a recent issue of the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability reveals.

The study undertaken by the Africa Rice Center and Benin’s University of Abomey however finds that the power of radio and video programming is not adequately recognized and accorded due attention by Africa’s policy-makers, stifling its potential to unleash farmer innovations.

“Farmers’ innovations are often shaped by capital limitations and mainly rely on locally available resources, of which knowledge is a key one,” says Paul Van Mele, a scientist at the Africa Rice Center. “Video proved a powerful, low-cost medium for farmer-to-farmer extension and to expose rural communities to new ideas and practices.”

Titled, "The power of video to trigger innovation: rice processing in central Benin," the study examined the impacts of educational videos featuring early-adopting farmers demonstrating the use of new technologies and techniques. The study found that when women watched videos featuring fellow farmers demonstrating new techniques, they showed better learning and understanding of the technology and creatively applied its central ideas.

Innovation levels of 72 percent were recorded in villages where women were introduced to improved rice processing techniques by videos compared to 19 percent among farmers who had attended training workshops. When women who had attended training workshops watched the videos, the innovations recorded shot up to 92 percent.

Indeed, the study found that watching videos spurred greater innovation than did conventional farmer training techniques. Notably high levels of creativity (67 percent) were recorded among women who did not have access to the rice processing technology featured in the video.

“The adaptations by Benin women to improve rice processing after having watched the video illustrate the power of video to quickly stimulate creativity among rural people, who are often seen as much more passive technology consumers,” says Van Mele. “Besides being more powerful, video was also able to reach more people than conventional training workshops.”

Drawing lessons from a similar rural learning initiative undertaken in Bangladesh, the Africa Rice Center with a wide range of partners is using local language videos to train farmers on various facets of rice production and processing in Benin, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal, among other countries.

By last year, the rice videos had been translated into 20 African languages, and were being used by more than 400 community-based organizations across Africa to strengthen their own capacity in rice technologies. The videos, which are disseminated through mobile cinema vans or local organizations, have been viewed by about 130,000 farmers across Africa unleashing their creativity, reaching thrice as many farmers as do face-to-face farmer training workshops.

Partner organizations in various countries are combining the videos with radio programming to reinforce the lessons and knowledge. In Guinea, one radio station, Radio Guinée Maritime has aired interviews with farmers involved in this program reaching some 800,000 listeners, an experience which has been replicated in Gambia, Nigeria and the refugees of Northern Uganda.

In order to effectively capitalize on the potential of radio and video technologies in Africa, the study recommends broadening the common outlook on innovations beyond the traditional research and extension systems to include localized farmer innovations too. “Local innovations better reflect the realities of rural people than do outside techniques,” say the study authors.

CGIAR

Can organic cotton save the industry?

Fuel and fertiliser price hikes, insect infestations and chemical damage to soil have led some cotton farmers in West Africa to produce organic cotton. But the international recession has blunted demand for the new crop, according to an industry trade group.

Global organic cotton production grew by more than 150 percent to 145,000 metric tons in 2008 – an estimated 0.55 percent of total cotton production, according to the US-based non-profit Organic Exchange, which promotes and monitors organic agriculture. Though West African cotton growers produced only about two percent of this amount, this was double the region’s yield of 2007.

But the global financial crisis has posed a “headache” for promoters of organic cotton, said Jens Soth with the Swiss NGO Helvetas, which promotes farmers’ livelihoods through organic agriculture.“The financial crisis has reduced business’s appetite for risk. Companies are still honouring their organic cotton contracts, but demand is not growing. They are waiting to see how their consumers react [to the recession].”

Soth said more farmers want to join Helvetas’s programmes that have trained farmers and monitored and purchased organic cotton from nearly 10,000 farmers in Mali, Burkina Faso and Kyrgyzstan since 2002. “But we are not taking on more farmers now. Not in this climate. I hope we can even sell this year’s production.”

Despite the grim economic outlook Soth said he is optimistic that the organic market can withstand a downturn. He said Helvetas’s buyers, including the US-based Victoria’s Secret lingerie store and Swiss companies - including cotton trading firm Reinhart, retailer Migros and textile group Switcher - have not cancelled their orders, but demand has levelled.

Conventional cotton farmers in Burkina Faso have had dwindling incomes despite increased production (file photo)Burkina FasoOne of West Africa’s top cotton exporters, Burkina Faso became the world’s 10th largest organic cotton producer in 2008 with 2,000 metric tons, double the amount of the previous year, according to Organic Exchange.

While organic cotton commands a higher price than non-organic, it might not be worth the trouble, the head of Burkina Faso’s cotton producer association said. “It is not easy to cultivate organic cotton,” said National Union of Burkinabe Cotton Producers president, Francois Traoré. “The members [of the union] do not grow organic cotton even though they promote it.”

Traoré said it is becoming increasingly difficult to stay competitive because producers in India “have started undercutting organic prices.” Burkina Faso producers of organic cotton earn about 50 US cents per kilo. Profits have also been lower than for conventional cotton because even though farmers earn up to 30 percent more per kilo, yields are less than half on average, Traoré said.

Pesticide-free cultivation requires crop rotation and manual weeding and fertilising, which limit cotton production, according to the cotton association president. One advantage of organic cotton, which is produced without chemicals, is that women excluded from agriculture that uses heavy pesticides are able to participate, according to Traoré. “Some 70 percent of organic producers in this country are women. [With traditional cotton] the fumes [from pesticide spraying] are noxious for children [who are with their mothers at work] and pregnant women.”

Smaller yields are to be expected initially when switching to organic cotton, according to a 2008 comparison of organic and conventional cotton in Mali by Canada’s University of Moncton.

Researchers wrote that because organic cultivation requires crop rotation, which decreases the land available for cotton, it can take at least four years before new crops and improved soil fertility compensate for the loss in income. But even if there is a short-term shortfall in profits, the researchers wrote, the long-term health and environmental benefits from non-chemical cultivation outweigh any losses. The researchers concluded that over the long term, as long as cheap labour is available, chemical-free cotton farming is more profitable than conventional cotton, can decrease rural poverty by employing more women and can improve soil management.

In Benin some 1,500 producers produced 500 metric tons of organic cotton in 2008, according to the country’s Organisation for the Promotion of Organic Agriculture.Helvetas’s representative in Benin, Evelyne Sissinto, said high fertiliser and fuel prices plus environmental degradation have started pushing farmers into organic production. She said organic cotton production is about livelihood as much as it is about agriculture.

"Helvetas offers cotton producers a minimum guaranteed price and families no longer have to go into debt to buy expensive fertilisers and pesticides." Helvetas pays farmers up to 59 cents per kilo, in addition to providing organic certification, training and follow-up help, according to Sissinto.

While thousands of farmers have begun producing organic cotton in West Africa, the majority of the region’s cotton farmers still grow conventional cotton. In Burkina Faso 350,000 farmers practice conventional cotton farming and slightly fewer in Benin, according to the countries’ trade groups. Organic producers form 0.1 percent of growers in both countries.

But no matter how long it takes, agriculture researcher Jeanne Zoudjihekpon in Benin’s economic capital Cotonou, said it is time farmers come “full circle” to their natural roots. “Our ancestors grew things organically and did not know anything about chemicals. If we want to stay true to ourselves, we can do only organic cultivation.”

The UN Food and Agricultural Organization has named 2009 the International Year of Natural Fibres to help promote a sector that has typically brought in $40 billion annually - mostly in cotton earnings - but has shrunk in recent years because of losses in the conventional cotton sector.

IRIN

Benin cuts cotton harvest forecast further

Benin's 2008/09 cotton crop will fall short of forecasts that have already been revised downwards due to bad weather, a government official said on September 19.

The harvest in the West African country was estimated at more than 310,000 tonnes, which would exceed last year's crop of 268,054 tonnes, but be well below the original forecast of 500,000 tonnes which was then cut to 384,000 tonnes.

"The performance of cotton production compared with the forecasts is predominantly due to weather conditions," said Aly Bouco Imorou, Secretary General of the agriculture ministry.

Benin is one of West Africa's leading cotton produces, but its harvests have recently been much lower than its estimated 600,000 tonne capacity. Cotton cultivation in the region is suffering from high fertiliser costs and bad weather.

Mali estimates it will produce less than half a previous estimate, Ivory Coast is expected to fall short of 250,000 tonne estimate, and Central African Republic last year produced less than 1,000 tonnes.

In May this year, Benin's President Thomas Boni Yayi, who has pledged to revitalise the former French colony's economy, raised the mandatory farm-gate purchase price to 210 CFA francs per kg for the 2008/09, up from 180 CFA francs in an effort to stimulate growth.

Benchmark cotton prices as set in New York closed at 64.55 cents per lb on Friday, having lost 10 percent in the past twelve months. Global production is forecast at 24.7 million tonnes by industry group the International Cotton Advisory Committee.

Reuters

Benin struggles to diversify its agriculture

One of Africa's strongest democracies, Benin, a country of undulating plains and low mountain ranges, borders Nigeria, Niger, Togo and Burkina Faso. But despite its strong democratic example, Benin's economic situation is less than healthy. Over half of the population rely on subsistence farming for their livelihood and the poor have not benefited from the country's legacies as the once-powerful kingdom of Dahomey and more recently one of Africa's largest cotton producers.

Benin is heavily dependent upon trade with its neighbour Nigeria, leaving it vulnerable to that country's economic volatility. And, although Benin has privatised some of its national industry and encouraged foreign direct investment, it has recently been ranked among the poorest countries in the world in the United Nations Human Development Index.

Cotton is the only cash crop available to smallscale farmers, making up 40 per cent of the country's GDP and over 80 per cent of export revenues. A consequence is that the country's fertile land has suffered environmental degradation as a result of the emphasis on production of cotton for the export market, and because 90 per cent of all pesticides are used on cotton. Heavy use of agrochemicals has prompted widespread concern about the sustainability of the industry; this was particularly so between 1999 and 2000 following reintroduction of the pesticide endosulfan, related to the banned DDT, which led to many farmer deaths.

The damage to both human health and the environment has prompted the widespread introduction of organic farming methods. Organic farming has almost doubled since 2003. Organisations such as the Pesticide Action Network, based in the UK, together with local partner OBEPAB, (Organisation Beninoise pour la Promotion de l'Agriculture Biologique), have trained local farmers - particularly women - in Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and organic cotton farming through Farmer Field Schools. IPM measures aimed at reducing chemical pesticide use to a minimum include improving soil fertility, recognising disease and encouraging natural enemies.

Benin's export market has expanded to include other agricultural products. The production of shea nut butter, though more popular in Ghana, is an activity now strongly associated with women and reported to be, at times, a more important source of income than cotton. Shea nuts are a staple in the local diet and their increasing use in the lucrative cosmetics industry is promoting interest in its export value. However, the process of making shea butter is laborious and in some seasons may be unprofitable.

Since the mid-1980s Benin has increased production of yams, cassava, maize, peanuts and pulses to achieve food security. Rice production, in particular upland varieties grown on dry land, has been boosted by the introduction of NERICA varieties by the Africa Rice Center (WARDA). The new varieties combine the hardiness of indigenous rice with the high yielding characteristics of Asian varieties, and they are said to produce 50 per cent more yield than local varieties without fertiliser use, and up to 200 per cent more with fertiliser application.

Although palm oil was a major cash crop in Benin during the 1980s, its cultivation was marginalised by the popularity of cotton. But now, following the booming interest in biofuels, palm oil production is increasing - which caused some controversy. The World Rainforest Movement has reported the allocation of 300,000-400,000 ha of land for palm oil production in humid southern Benin which, despite constituting only ten per cent of national territory, is home to 50 per cent of the country's population. It says that such a policy will promote the cultivation of palm oil for biofuel production on prime agricultural land and lead to competition with food crops.

Over half of Benin's forest areas have been cleared or lost to bush fires. Of the forests that remain, mahogany, iroko, teak, samba and other tropical hardwoods are used to make furniture and gifts for the tourist trade. Off-shore oil reserves discovered in the 1960s have been largely exploited and imports now far exceed exports. Other natural resources include marble and limestone, together with small deposits of gold, but the mineral industry makes up a small component of the country's GDP, mostly due to undeveloped infrastructure.

This lack of infrastructure and investment means that despite large reserves of natural resources and a historic and thriving cotton industry, Benin has been unable to realise its economic potential. Only slowly are food processing, shrimp and deep-sea fishing developing as the private sector takes advantage of a new policy introduced by the government in 2001 to encourage investment. Only time will tell whether this kind of investment can lift one of the world's poorest, yet resource-rich countries in the world, out of poverty.

New Agriculturalist

Project installs solar-powered micro-irrigation in Benin

by Robert A. Freling*

Western Africa's dry season wreaks havoc on the lives of millions of people year after year. The 104,000 people living in Benin's Kalale District are particularly hard hit: 95% of them rely on subsistence farming as their primary means of survival. For most, farming is limited to the rainy season due the lack of accessible water for irrigation during the dry season.

During the dry season people suffer from poor diets, little income and the necessity of buying expensive food from the tropical areas of the country. For half the year, a lack of farm work causes community dislocation as many families migrate to squalid, overcrowded urban areas in search of employment.

Kalalé District's dry season typically lasts six months a year. During this time, crops are only grown in the very limited areas near rivers or lakes. In these more fortunate villages, water is commonly moved through the laborious and time-consuming method of filling containers by hand and slowly watering individual plants. This labor-intensive process severely limits the amount of land that can be cultivated during the dry season.

There have been limited attempts to irrigate Kalalé's farmland with pumps powered by gas or diesel engines but these attempts have been short-lived due to maintenance difficulties and the high cost of fuel in the region. In addition, the national electric grid has not reached Kalalé District. Currently the only electrical generation is supplied by small, local generators sparsely disbursed throughout the region.

Over 80% of Kalalé's villages do not have a source of surface water and virtually nothing is grown during the dry season. During this time, families live on a combination of stored grains and expensive food brought up from the tropical southern part of the country. Prices for basic vegetables (tomatoes, onions, peppers, etc.) almost double during the year from rainy season prices to dry season prices. The lack of availability and high prices combine to severely limit diets during the dry season and malnutrition is prevalent.

In addition to a lack of water for crop production, many villages in Kalalé also suffer from a lack of clean water for drinking and domestic use. Those without clean water suffer from various water-borne illnesses while those with wells spend a great deal of time fetching water from a limited number of hand-pumps that are often not working.

The Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF) is working to install low-cost micro-irrigation and solar water pumps in two villages in Kalalé District. This will create a reliable and economical means of irrigation and enable families in these villages to grow crops during the six month dry season for significant improvements in family income and nutrition. At least 20 families (100-200 people) will directly benefit from the solar-irrigation project and approximately 4,500 people living in two communities will benefit from the added supply of clean water during the rainy season.

The first phase of the project, which was funded in part by the $100,000 seed money that SELF won in the World Bank's Development Marketplace Competition, began in August of 2007.

Upon completion of the project, the solar drip-irrigation technology that is being installed will provide the following:

• Participating families will more than double their annual income.

• Participating families will increase considerably their consumption of fresh vegetables during the dry season thus reducing malnutrition.

• Project villages will double or even triple the harvest of fresh vegetables during the dry season.

• Project villages will gain an average of 6,000-8,000 gallons per day or more of clean water during the rainy season.

A plan will be developed to replicate the project in the remaining 42 villages of Kalalé District.

Because the wells and solar pumps will only be used for irrigation during the dry season, the community will benefit greatly during the rest of the year from the nearly 5,000-8,000 gallons per day of solar-pumped well water. The laborious and time-consuming task of collecting water in small containers from faraway wells will be effectively eliminated.

While both solar pumping and micro-drip irrigation schemes have had wide-spread use, they have seldom been used in combination and results have not been well-documented. SELF plans to establish a set of "best practices" for combining these technologies and a "how-to" format and dissemination plan so that this technology can be used to help the millions of people in Africa and elsewhere that are limited in the amount of food that they can grow by the absence of water.

Beyond providing a cleaner and quieter local environment in comparison to diesel pumps, solar pumping in this project models a productive end-use powered by a carbon-free and sustainable energy source. As 1.8 billion people in the world without electricity look for energy solutions to improve their lives, projects such as this show that the targeted use of solar energy can raise living standards and still preserve fragile environments already under stress from overuse and climate change.

*Robert Freling is executive director of the Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF).

Renewable Energy World

Two bird flu outbreaks in Benin

Benin has discovered two outbreaks of bird flu among poultry which it believes to be the deadly H5N1 strain, the first such cases in the West African country, a senior health official said on Friday.

The cases were discovered late on Thursday in Adjarra, some 15 km (9 miles) north of the capital Porto Novo, and on a farm in the commercial capital Cotonou.

"We found several dead birds. We went ahead with tests which turned out to be positive," Julien Toessi, a senior public health official, told Reuters in an interview.

"We have taken samples which we have already sent to Italy to be confirmed but we are convinced that these (bird) deaths are due to the H5N1 strain of bird flu," he said.

Health Ministry officials said several hundred birds had been slaughtered as a precautionary measure in a 5 km (3 mile) radius around the two separate locations. All farms within a 15 km radius were being disinfected.

The import of poultry had been banned and restrictions on the movement of birds between farms imposed.

Benin's eastern neighbour Nigeria has been one of the countries worst affected by bird flu in the region, reporting sub-Saharan Africa's first confirmed human death from the disease early this year.

Its western neighbour, Togo, declared its first outbreak of the most deadly strain of avian influenza in June and has since found new cases.

H5N1 bird flu has killed more than 200 people around the world, mainly in Asia, since the disease re-emerged in Hong Kong in 2003, according to the World Health Organization.

Outbreaks in Africa have raised alarm bells because epidemiologists fear the continent's widespread poverty, lack of proper veterinary and medical facilities and huge informal farming sector could allow outbreaks to go unnoticed for longer, increasing the risk of the virus mutating.

Reuters

Songhai Centre demonstrates sustainable farming in Benin

Comlan Houessou, head of the network of people living with HIV/AIDS in Benin, was fascinated to learn about projects by the Songhaï Centre in the capital, Porto Novo, to develop inexpensive agricultural production systems based on agrobiology.

"We are realising that it's not necessary to have a large area of land to be able to farm," said Houessou, a 42-year-old farmer. He visited the centre as part of a conference on mitigating the impact of HIV/AIDS on agriculture and food security in West Africa, held in early October in Cotonou.

Songhaï, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) set up in 1985, is a centre for training on sustainable farming production, research and development. Its goal is to allow rural African communities to improve their living conditions by using traditional and modern methods of farming and animal breeding, by making the most of local resources and by creating viable agricultural businesses.

The Songhaï Centre's activities are aimed at all farmers and breeders, not just those living with HIV/AIDS, but Houessou could see immediately what the farming methods could mean to farmers weakened by the virus.

Some techniques require less energy by using short-cycle crops and seed varieties that are resistant to difficult climatic conditions, and require less use of pesticides or other chemical products - which are particularly harmful to people who are HIV-positive.

"Even people living with HIV can [keep up] with this level [of work] without needing to expend a huge amount of energy," Houessou said. "This is good news for us. These extra-early crops, such as cowpea and corn, could be a great help to us."

"We do all we can to develop the crops in their natural environment", said Brother Ubeti Godfrey Nzamujo, Songhaï's founder, during the visit. "Nothing is wasted here, everything is useful to us."

He noted that nutrition is paramount for people infected with HIV. "You need to eat a lot when your immune system is weakened. I eat a lot of pasta [made from corn], and there are many different varieties of corn here."

Songhaï Centre founder Nzamujo designed the centre to be "a system for integrated development", by combining the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors. He said the centre's strength lies in its ability to process agricultural products on site; this in turn supports the distribution process.

In just over two decades, the NGO has supported the development of 500 farms across the country and has trained thousands of young farmers on its four sites, thanks to revenue from production and support from international organisations.

IRIN

Benin, Brazil sign biofuel cooperation agreement

Brazil and Benin have signed an agreement to work together to produce, use and commercialize fuels made from crops.

A team of eight Brazilian ethanol experts will establish a presence in the West-African country to help it develop a production capacity.

In his speech at the signing ceremony, Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Lula said fuels like ethanol and biodiesel will give more countries the chance to become involved in energy production which serves as a tool to promote development.

Benin President Thomas Boni Yayi described Lula as 'a friend' of Africa and recalled the fact he had surpassed previous Brazilian leaders in the number of African countries visited. Lula has traveled to 17 nations on the continent, paying a visit to Benin in February 2006.

On August 16, the Beninese president was to travel to Sao Paulo, where he wwas expected to visit an ethanol plant and meet biofuel entrepreneurs.o). On Friday, he will visit Salvador, in northeastern Brazil, where there are many descendants of slaves brought from Benin during the colonial and imperial period. There he will sign a Cooperation Protocol between Salvador and Cotonou.

Biopact

Benin calls on U.S. Congress to end cotton subsidies

Benin President Thomas Boni Yayi has called on the U.S. Congress to remove subsidies on cotton production from the 2007 farm bill (passed by the House of Representatives July 27, now before the Senate), saying the subsidies impoverished millions of African farmers.

A statement from the Benin government said Yayi had written to U.S. legislators to argue subsidies were depressing international cotton prices, forcing African farmers into debt.

Cotton accounts for 60 percent of exports from Benin, which acts as the spokesman for Africa's cotton growers. In sub-Saharan Africa's main producers - Mali, Chad, Burkina Faso and Benin- nearly 60 percent of the population relies on cotton for its livelihood.

"These subsidies represent an injustice for poor countries and deny them equal access to world markets," said the letter. "With a view to ending these practices which distort the international cotton trade and stop the poorest countries from seizing the opportunities offered by world trade, I invite the speaker and members of the American Congress who will examine the farm bill to remove any clauses which disrupt free trade."

The 2007 farm bill will set subsidies in the U.S. agricultural sector for the next five years, but a draft version by the House Agriculture Committee has hit opposition from the White House which says it misses a chance to reform the sector.

Yayi, a former banker elected last year on an anti-graft mandate, has promised to revitalise Benin's economy, including the cotton sector. His government last month raised the mandatory farmgate cotton price to 180 CFA francs ($0.38) per kg for top quality cotton, a 10 CFA franc increase from the previous year.

Despite Benin's 600,000 tons production capacity, cotton output has generally declined in recent years due to unfavourable rainfall and irregular input distribution. It reached 250,000 tons last season.

Sign on San Diego

Land management, agro-productivity falter in Benin

For many people, the importing of tomatoes is probably not a topic of great fascination. But then, they're not Sylvestre Fandohan. This Beninese agricultural engineer sees in his country's consumption of tomatoes from neighbouring Burkina Faso an indictment of poor natural resource management by the Cotonou government and its citizens. As national co-ordinator of the Conservation and Natural Resource Management Programme (Programme de conservation et de gestion des ressources naturelles, ProCGRN), a joint Beninese-German initiative mainly carried out in the north-western Atacora and Donga regions, he is also working to change this state of affairs.

Recently, Fandohan sat down with Michée Boko to discuss ProCGRN, which got underway in January 2004 and is scheduled to wrap up in December 2014; the project aims to help communities make better use of natural resources, to increase their income. Ultimately, it also works to fight desertification in Benin.

Q : What agricultural practices have you come across that are bad for the land, but which subsistence farmers persist in carrying out?

A : For example, farmers create large mounds to grow yams, often in low-lying areas that they could use to produce rice, for instance, helping to conserve water and land. The cultivation of yams is also very destructive for natural resources. It's land-extensive, slash-and-burn farming. It's a crop that is always raised on cleared land,abandoned after three years, at most, for new bush land. People set fire to the bush on this new land to clear, and late in the dry season intead of earlier as we often advise them. Late fires severely degrade the soil and kill animals and plants.

Other dangerous practices are uncontrolled forest exploitation, especially of timber, with chainsaws; tools which are banned because they enable an exploitation that is too rapid and that leads to wastage of wood. This also compromises good management of natural resources, and is a factor in "Sahelisation" and ultimately desertification.

Q : Are you saying that natural resources in Benin are under threat?

A : Absolutely! Benin has fine laws that protect the environment and natural resources, but they are not implemented at all, or are poorly implemented. Unfortunately, Benin has not yet developed all the instruments of good governance that are necessary for resources to be better managed. Today, people exploit what they want, as they want, with assistance from all ranks of forestry officials.There are people who export forest products of Benin and pass them off as products of Togo or Nigeria.

Taking Burkina (Faso) as an example, I would say that in the area of water resource management, Benin is considerably behind some neighbouring countries. Benin has more water than Burkina, but it consumes many tomatoes from Burkina Faso, which is a dry, Sahelian country. This is strange and shameful, as compared to Burkina, Benin is better endowed by nature. That we do not know how to manage these resources better than people who are less endowed by nature, I find very serious. It's very important for us, as Benin is an agricultural country; making water available in all seasons is a fight that we must continue to wage. This could solve many of the problems concerning pressure on natural resources and desertification.

IPS News

West African cotton farmers ruined by US subsidies

Karim Ouattara, a cotton farmer in Burkina Faso, should be a happy man. His has just produced a bumper crop of the "white gold" upon which millions of West Africans depend. Six tonnes of picked and priced cotton lie heaped on his farm, ready to be sold.

But Ouattara, who for 20 years has made a living on the plantations of the region's biggest cotton producer, has yet to see his cheque. His workers remain unpaid, and for the first time he has been advised to store his crop until the processing plants, themselves struggling to break even, can afford to buy the country's record 800,000 tonnes harvest. In an unprecedented move, Sofitex, the largest of Burkina Faso's three cotton companies, has advised farmers to build a storage shed for every 50 tonnes of the latest harvest.After four consecutive years of plummeting prices on the world market, the industry that provides the backbone to West African economies is now on the brink of collapse.

Cotton provides nearly 70 per cent of Burkina Faso's cash exports, and income for more than a quarter of its 13 million people. The global cotton market has been brought to breaking point by factors known locally as "the monster with three heads": a weak dollar, low world prices and US cotton subsidies.

2007 will be crucial for the futures of 10 million West African farmers as the US re-negotiates its Farm Bill, which has attracted international condemnation. America's 25,000 cotton farmers receive subsidies totalling some $4bn, allowing them to undercut their developing competitors. The subsidies were ruled illegal by the World Trade Organisation three years ago, yet only 10 per cent have been dropped so far, and Washington still pays many times more in subsidies to these farmers than it gives in aid to Africa each year. As a result, world cotton prices are now at the lowest since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Global trade talks have also stalled since West Africa's four main cotton-producers; Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad and Benin, demanded fair trading conditions for farmers who earn barely enough to cover production costs.

Mr. Outtara is in despair, saying, "Cotton production is meant to be a way out of poverty, not a means of keeping us there." When he finally sells his crop and repays his loans, Mr Outtara expects to make a profit of just 25,000 CFA (West African francs). That is $50. He can no longer afford to pay university fees for Mariam, his 23-year-old daughter, who has dropped out of her accounting course. "I just have to hope the price will pick up. If it doesn't, it will be a catastrophe," he said.

It is a word increasingly heard around the region."The situation is criminal," François Traoré, president of the Association of African Cotton Producers, said of the American subsidies."Families who don't even know where America is are being punished by their policies. We are not their enemies. Why are they destroying us with their riches? One day, when we face the same God, how will they explain themselves?"

The Bush Administration has said it will consider increasing aid to boost African farmers' productivity, but that has been dismissed by developing nations, which would rather have a "fair playing field."

With many farmers running at a loss, most are reducing production or switching crops. For Amadou Traoré (no relation to François), this harvest will be his last. He is turning to maize, which now sells for a third of the price of cotton. "It may not sell as well, but at least you know you can feed your family," he said.

* 20 million farmers in 33 African states rely on cotton production for their living.

* The price of West African cotton has fallen every year since 2003, plummeting from 42 cents to 32 cents per kg.

* Every acre of cotton farmland in the US attracts a subsidy of $230. Economists estimate US farmers would make a loss without the subsidy.

* In 2004/2005, the amount paid out to American cotton farmers came to a total of $4.2 billion dollars. The same year, farmers in Burkina Faso produced a bumper crop of cotton more efficiently, and yet made a loss of $81 million.

The Times

Desertification threatens agriculture, livelihoods in Benin

Seven years of working in some of the poorest parts of Benin put Euloge Vidégla in the front lines of the battle against desertification. An agricultural economist, he managed the Local Development Support Project (Projet d'appui au développement local, PADEL), mostly in the northern Atacora region, from 1997 to 2004. PADEL tried to improve life for communities in an area where poverty and harmful practices conspire to degrade the land. Despite the benefits of projects such as PADEL, he believes more needs to be done in Benin to address desertification.

Vidégla said the main objective of the project was to reduce the extreme poverty, specifically by supporting decentralisation, installing some infrastructure, contributing to strengthening the local population's capacity and combating desertification while improving the people's surroundings. "We worked in communities where you clearly saw the horrors of desertification. The wind could not be blocked at all because there were practically no trees. The violent winds swept away just about everything in their path, especially the roofs of houses, " he said.

The soil was also completely degraded, dry and difficult to cultivate. Vidégla said, "We led some initiatives to combat land degradation by building stone embankments in a half moon or semi circle shape, which help to fight soil erosion. This technique allows one to prevent run off water from carrying away arable land."

"Before, they had wild animals very close to their homes and could hunt them easily. But today there are none. One has to go very far to find them. There were also lots of trees near their homes previously. Today, they themselves see that the trees have disappeared. They easily take note of the seriousness of the situation when it is shown to them in this before and after way."

Asked which farming or traditional practices he saw as being dangerous for the environment in the regions he worked, Vidégla mentioned uncontrolled bush fires. "Given that there isn't much greenery in these regions, the bush fires degrade the land. This is one of the most dangerous practices which must be outlawed if we want to preserve the land and the environment," he said. "It's often hunters who start the fires, to drive game out. Peasant farmers also start fires thinking that this will clean the soil, when it only serves to degrade it further. This is a problem of traditions which must be fought. When we put bush fire brigades in place, the trend was greatly reduced."

"In Atacora, people continue to chop wood for cooking, although there are no longer many trees in the region. There are people who are openly selling wood despite the intense fight for conservation being led by water and forestry officials. People cannot even use paraffin stoves because the fuel is too expensive," he said. Vidégla believes the fight against the excessive cutting of wood must be intensified "This is fundamental. If the state can also introduce cheap gas in these regions to reduce the use of firewood, it would save the environment."

Agriculture still be practiced there in these endangered northern regions, but not in an extensive way as in the south of Benin. Vidégla says it can now only be done intensively in certain areas with soil fertility enhancement techniques such as the use of cow dung and compost.

Asked if he believed Benin was doing what it should to combat desertification effectively, Vidégla replied, "No, it is not doing enough. When you see countries like Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger - with all that they are doing, but not coping yet - you understand that we still have a lot to do. We are at a slight natural advantage to these (further north) countries, but we are not exploiting this advantage yet. Everyone has yet to wake up to the danger that is already at our door.

IPS