Abidjan, 22. maj, 2012 (IRIN): Omkring 320.000 mennesker kæmper mod sult, fordi de ikke har råd til den dyre importerede ris, men regeringens indsats for at nedbringe prisen har slået fejl.
More than half of the country’s cereal intake is rice, but just half of the national requirement is produced domestically, making Ivoirians heavily dependent on imported rice. Government statistics record some 837,000mt imported in 2010, and 819,061mt in 2009.
In March 2012, the price of imported rice was 68 to 92 US cents per kg – 30 to 50 percent more than the five-year average, depending on where the market was located – while locally grown rice cost 55 to 77 US cents per kg, making it 15 percent more expensive.
The price of manioc – another staple food, also known as cassava – which is heavily consumed in western Côte d’Ivoire, has gone up by 70 percent.
Food insecurity is most severe in the north and west, where hundreds of thousands of people were displaced in the election-related violence that overtook much of the country from 2010 to 2011, when they could not access their fields to plant crops.
Læs videre på: http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95497/COTE-D-IVOIRE-Traders-resist-rice-price-rules
