Face-a-Face on local food sufficiency

THE first "Face-a-Face" programme on SBC-TV this year focused on local food sufficiency and saw the participation of three government officials and just one representative of the private sector, Ms Nicole Tirant-Gehardi, Secretary of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

It came out clearly that Seychelles national food production had steadily declined over the years and that it is not easy to reverse the trend.

Participants agreed that over the years, more and more agricultural land have been used for other purposes, notably housing and tourism. Ms Tirant-Gehardi also mentioned plans to use very productive land at Anse Royale to build the University of Seychelles, which would likely impact on the availability of vegetables.

She noted that farmers were operating under many constraints, including difficult topography and often infertile land and that one way to remedy the situation was for Government to consider subsidising agricultural production. After all, the country spends a fortune importing the food that we need. It is worth noting that even some European countries, which have no shortage of flat and fertile land, subsidies their farmers through various concessions.

Though the Principal Secretary for National Development, Mrs Veronique Herminie, said backyard farming could be helpful, it must not be overlooked that the requisite stores supplied what little seeds; fertiliser and other requirements were stocked only to registered farmers. And even they have great difficulty obtaining what they need.

The farmers have been lucky these past few years that rain has been plentiful and that drought has not been added to their woes.

Even then, we are getting less of several vegetables and fruits which used to be produced locally in significant quantities. Tomatoes are one such example. It used to grow in abundance in Praslin and other plateau areas. These days, Praslin gets her tomatoes from Mahe, which imports from abroad. A possible reason is that there are less young Seychellois interested in agriculture as many of them turn to tourism which is viewed as more lucrative.

The issue of chicken farming also came up in the programme. While the recent shortage of animal feed was hardly mentioned, it came out that the chicken abattoir was largely inadequate, capable of handling just 4,000 birds a day. Agricultural advisor Antoine-Marie Moustache let out that the structure was over 20 years old and there were plans to build a new abattoir.

Until then, a fair share of the broiler chicken consumed locally is imported all the way from Brazil. This requires foreign currency, something this country is already desperately short of.