I would like to share my central African region experience by insisting on luck of “chain value” in several national and international approach of food security, in particularly when it comes to Forest products on Food Security and Nutrition.
In Central Africa, opposite to Sahel zone, forests represent a great source to attaining food security and nutrition, particularly for rural citizen of all concerned Central Africa Republic, Cameroon, Republic of Congo , Democratic Republic of Congo and Gabon .
Specifically in Central Africa, people seem to become lazy to work for food subsistence because the forest is “good” enough to provide them any time in the year with some different kind of protein sources that is enough to feed the few human being that populate this part of the world that represent the lowest registered population density In the world (average less than 9.0/ km2, comprising the cities). As mentioned before by Chencho who listed some of these products, it represent an important source of income for people who lived in the forest areas.
Despite a long run of international intervention and recently (2012) a political will to center Agriculture (senso largo: comprising forest and livestock) as the drive of poverty reduction, emphasis remains on how to enhance productivity.
It is well known that no one, whatever the cleaver, the courage and the willing of work, will concentrate on productivity without a well established value chain. There is an anecdote that happen years ago, after the second big drought in the Sahel that collaborate that fact ; the minister of agriculture were surnamed “niebe”(local name of green bean), because he promoted the beans production in the northern part of the country that suffered from desertification and drought , due to climate variations and changes. And the year he did so , the production were very high , but no one thought about value chain of such product, most of production ended as rubbish, even livestock did not took profit of such good production of so important source of protein, green beans.
During the last five years, two projects worked in central African region on identification and inventory of comestible forest products that can count on food security and nutrition. Results defer from country to country despite the neighboring and the ecological similitude; differences are noted either on the listing or on the processing. Some processing methods have been improved during the project but didn’t be definitely implemented. One can say that a LITTLE has been done when considering the wide range of products that contribute to food security and nutrition in the global region.
Along with these projects, to build and consolidate population resilience, FAO initiated in Central Africa the concept of Women Zone (WZ). One of the components of the WZ was to initiate or improve value chain of forest and agricultural products. More than allowing women to feed children with nutritive local food, the WZ, through this component could provide works for young boys and even man and allowed market development inside the country and the region. Indeed, well finished and well manufactured special forest products, can valuably compete on international market and provide great income for the country.
As mentioned in several papers and others in this discussion, Forest count on food security, because it produce food supplies and protein, even where they occupied little area and where they are not dense, as in the Sahel.
In a world, where natural food and biological eaten are more and more promoted for health reason, it comes time to put more emphasis on bush and forest products chain value in particular in developing word as sub African countries. Investing on infrastructure that addresses the forest products Value Chain (post collect , storage , processing…and market ), as mentioned by Dennis Bennett, could guaranty sustainability, when people could see that beyond present food and nutrition, they can in the long run ensure their own development.
Rokhaya Daba FALL