IVORY COAST – Ivorian Minister of Animal Resources and Fisheries, Sidi Tiemoko Touré, has launched a five-year beef cattle production project (PRO-Bovine) worth 9.7 billion CFA francs (US$16.2 million).
The project, which will run through 2028, will focus on strengthening the technical capacities of 770 breeders, installing 350 new operators in the cattle breeding sector, and related activities such as establishing 5 cattle markets and constructing 100 mini-rotisseries in the long term.
“The objective of this program is to ensure that national meat needs are covered by production, to increase the incomes of rural populations, and to strengthen the resilience of communities dependent on livestock farming in Ivory Coast,” the ministry highlighted on its website.
In Ivory Coast, beef is the population’s second preferred source of animal protein after fish, and the consumption per head of beef has reached 4.9 kg per year, according to data from the authorities.
The country, which still produces less than half of its consumption needs of the commodity, imports massively from abroad.
The nation relies majorly on imports from France, Egypt, and India to meet the rest of the country’s consumption needs.
Generally, the country’s cost of food increased by 6% in January 2023 over the same month in the previous year.
According to the CEIC data report, Ivory Coast’s total imports grew 35.1 % YoY in Feb 2023, compared with an increase of 0.1 % YoY in the previous month.
To reduce the country’s s imports and reduce poverty among its residents, the government recently launched an agro-industrial project in the Northern region to transform the agro-industrial sector and stimulate inclusive agricultural growth.
The project got debt-financial backing of US$89.6m from the African Development Bank, African Development Fund, and a grant from the Africa Growth Together Fund, a fund co-financed with China.
The agro-industrial project constituted the construction of several dams 6 hydro-agricultural dams to irrigate 5000 hectares of cultivatable land and 20 agro-pastoral dams to supply vegetable plots.
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