Cibitoke: farmers complain about the lack of agricultural inputs

Farmers in the communes of Cibitoke province (North-West of Burundi) deplore the lack of chemical fertilizers. They ask the government to provide them in sufficient quantity. The provincial governor warns speculators but reassures the population. INFO SOS Médias Burundi

Farmers blame it on
the official in charge of the Provincial Bureau of Agriculture and Livestock.

“It maintains clientelism and favorism by granting chemical fertilizers only to CNDD-FDD members and to civil, police and military dignitaries close to the presidential party, while members of the opposition parties are excluded from any process of distribution and obtaining chemical fertilisers”, angrily laments one of the farmers met in the capital of Buganda commune.

Farmers complain that they have not even been served for inputs already paid in cash for cropping season C, a season which ended in July this year.

They estimate that the shortfall, especially for rice farmers, is very enormous.

More serious, according to another high-ranking source, tons of agricultural inputs end up in trading houses where they are very expensive.

In the commune of Mugina, farmers who confided in SOS Médias Burundi clearly indicated that the plants of various crops, starting with rice, are gradually drying up due to lack of inputs, most of the crop fields having been abandoned.

The governor of Cibitoke asks the population to show patience and threatens to punish the traders-speculators of chemical fertilizers before inciting the farmers to “denounce the acts of theft and corruption observed in this sector”.

Recently, Prime Minister Gervais Ndirakobuca ordered provincial governors and the only chemical fertilizer production company in Burundi FOMI (organo-mineral fertilizers) to find a lasting solution to the crisis – agricultural inputs threatening to take sanctions against this company that has always lied about the quantities produced, according to him.