CÔTE D’IVOIRE
CRACKING THE NUT OF SELF-SUFFICIENCY
The Ivorian Minister of Agriculture and the President of the African Development Bank share their views on special agricultural zones – which boost regional competitiveness
and help ensure food sovereignty By Howard Hudson, OPEC Fund
C ôte d’Ivoire is the world’s top producer of cocoa and a global exporter of cashews. Agriculture generates over 20 percent of the country’s GDP and is the primary source of income for two-thirds of households nationwide. Yet Côte d’Ivoire processes barely any of its own agricultural products, relying instead on mountains of highly expensive imports – the very definition of “unsustainable”. Looking to the future, the OPEC Fund recently signed a US$60 million loan in support of Côte d’Ivoire’s Northern Agro-Industrial Pole Project (2PAI-Nord). As the second of 9 planned “agricultural development poles” outlined in Côte d’Ivoire’s National Development Plan, the project will support 65,000 farming households, covering 400,000 people, including women and youth who often struggle to reach markets. The project is also investing in farmers’ access to markets, which will improve road and social infrastructure used by up to 1.2 million people across the northern and neighboring regions. Attracting more and more private investment for processing rice, meat, fish, cashews, mango and shea, the project will cut dependency on agricultural imports in the four northern provinces of Bagoué, Hambol, Poro and Tchologo. Co-financed with, among others, the AfDB, the total project cost stands at just over US$280 million.
In 2023 there were only 30 processing units nationally to deal with 180,000 tonnes of mango, so wastage has been a major problem Source: France24; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJn2gnak7NY
Côte d’Ivoire imports mainly whole frozen fish from West Africa, Europe and Asia, including small pelagic species and tunas
Source: The Fisheries Committee for the West Central Gulf of Guinea (FCWC)
Between 2013 and 2021, cashew production more than doubled, from 460,000 tonnes to 1.1 million tonnes Source: Centre for the Promotion of Imports from developing countries (CBI)
Côte d’Ivoire is home to AfricaRice's research complex with farms, laboratories and a rice genebank – dedicated to research into rice production systems Source: Africarice.org
Beef is the second-most popular source of animal protein after fish in the country Source: Food Business Africa
PHOTOS (top–bottom): Juanamari Gonzalez/Shutterstock.com; Maks Narodenko/Shutterstock.com; Michael Kraus/Shutterstock.com; Jr images/ Shutterstock.com; Soho A studio – stock.adobe.com; vitals/Shutterstock.com
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