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Central Africa: Donald Kaberuka - 'We Are Putting in 4.8 billion Dollars into Agriculture'
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Cameroon Tribune (Yaoundé)
INTERVIEW
25 June 2008
Posted to the web 25 June 2008
Lukong Pius Nyuylime
Q&A with Donald Kaberuka, President of the African Development Bank group.
How does the African Development Bank group intend to assist CEMAC enhance its development?
What must be done is to enhance agriculture. For the past ten years, agriculture production in Africa has been increasing at less than 3 % per annum. In many African countries, population is also increasing and at more than 3 %. The increase in production has not been enough to increase productivity per hectare but more land is being brought into farming. The idea today is to increase productivity of every hectare cultivated. What needs to be done is well known.
It is basically provision of water, seeds and fertilizer. The mechanism we have put in place is to address these three elements. Second, because of poor infrastructure in many countries, you could have surplus in one area and deficit in another. Farmers produce food which they end up not using due to post harvest losses. When you produce vegetable or tomatoes for instance without selling within a shot period, they get routine. In Africa, post harvest losses because of poor infrastructure could reach as high as 40 %. Against this backdrop, the ADB has decided it will improve both Agricultural productivity and infrastructure.
If I understand you well, your organisation will be putting emphases on assisting agricultural projects in the sub region. How much have you budgeted for that?
We are going to put 4.8 billion dollars into agriculture for the next three years. What we will be doing will vary from country to country. In some countries, water is not a problem, in others, water is really a problem. Infrastructure problems are more acute in some countries. In each case, we have to work to increase productivity per hectare through the provision of fertilizer, seeds and water. I am confident that we shall be able to overcome theses crises. The African Urban population has been increasing very rapidly and these are people who are dependent on imported food, Vietnamese rice, European wheat. We need to enable our own farmers produce these food items.
How do you intend to support the sub region in its integration project?
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The African Development Bank has four priorities: infrastructure, that is, energy, roads, etc, regional integration, private sector development and conflict resolution.
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