2 MILLION ANGOLAN FARMERS TO GET SEEDS, TOOLS IN FAO’S LARGEST AFRICAN OPERATION

2 MILLION ANGOLAN FARMERS TO GET SEEDS, TOOLS IN FAO’S LARGEST AFRICAN OPERATION

(Reissued as received.)

ROME/NAIROBI, 19 September (FAO) -- Almost 2 million Angolans will receive agricultural emergency assistance in the next few weeks before the start of the rainy season, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said today.

The FAO will provide agricultural kits to farmers in 14 of the 18 provinces in Angola.  The kits will include locally adapted varieties of maize, beans, vegetable, millet and sorghum seeds, and agricultural tools such as hoes and machetes.

Other humanitarian organizations working in Angola will distribute an additional 300,000 kits, the total will be some 600,000 kits.

In what is the FAO's largest operation in Africa, approximately 5,000 tonnes of inputs will be distributed to the most remote and isolated villages, where pockets of extreme vulnerability still exist.

"Through this assistance, farmers and their families will be able to cultivate their land and produce food for several months", said the FAO's Emergency Coordinator in Angola, Marco Giovannoni.

      Daily Life Remains Difficult

"The return of farmers to their villages has been a phenomenon on an enormous scale", Mr. Giovannoni said.  "There is a great sense of relief that the war is over, but daily life remains difficult for the vast majority of Angolan people.  The supply of seeds and tools is an essential contribution to improve the living conditions, food security and self-reliance of people in rural areas."

After three decades of war and a year and a half of peace, Angolans have started to clear their abandoned lands, to replant their fields and to build more durable houses than the shelters which millions of people were forced to live in during the war.

The Government has said that some 3.3 million formerly displaced people have already been resettled and that many others, including a significant number of former National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) soldiers, who have now been demobilized, have already returned to their homes before the start of the rainy season in September.

The FAO said that, in collaboration with its partners, among them many non-governmental organizations, it will distribute 50,000 agricultural kits to these demobilized, former UNITA soldiers.  Using funds donated by the World Bank, distributions will start in January.

      The Challenges Ahead

Agricultural households in Angola still face a number of challenges, including providing surplus food for their families and infrastructure problems.

National and domestic seed production in the country is limited, and purchasing imported seeds often increases local food prices, to the detriment of already economically fragile rural households.

To help offset this structural deficiency, the FAO is supporting seed multiplication programmes in villages, which will help families reduce their dependence on emergency assistance and humanitarian aid and move towards self-sustenance and reliance.

The FAO has also announced plans to support the rehabilitation of livestock herds in Angola, which have been decimated by the 27-year-long war.

Italy, Japan, Norway, Sweden, the European Union, as well as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have contributed $11.3 million to the FAO's emergency projects in Angola.

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