The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Gabriel Mbairobe has chaired the fifth steering committee meeting and laid the foundation stone for the rice value chain development project.
The project worth over 100 billion cfa francs, comes as a gift to farmers in the North-West region, ripping the fruits of their labour by producing according to demand and also limiting importation.
The Rice Value Chain Project is expected to go a long way to reduce rice importation and boost local production through mechanized farming and expert guidance of rice farmers.
The project will also feature the construction of health centres, institution of portable water points and opening of roads leading to the thousands of unexploited fields in the North West, West and Far North Regions, where the project will be implemented.
Rice production capacity will increase with the coming of the project.
According to Ndichengoh Salifu from Ndop, farmer's representative of the Rice Value Chain Development program, "We are grateful that it has started this season and we obtained some inputs from the project and we will also obtain improved seeds for the farmers".
Eric Andanfung is the Director General of UNVDA Ndop. He gave Civiclens the what obtained before and what will change with the coming of the project.
"UNVDA has a potential of 15000 hectares of swamp to be developed and we are currently working on 3743 hectares, some of which has not been developed which needs some rehabilitation works. Production stands at about 21 tonnes in our zone of intervention in 5 divisions, North-West and West Region".
"The Rice Value Development Chain Project is very much welcome, in their project they have to develop 2000 hectares of swampland in Ndop, that will augment their capacity to 5743 and this will beef up UNVDA".
Agriculture Minister mentioned that the Rice Value Chain Project will ameliorate the living conditions of the population by their access to some social services; education, health care and portable water.
"We are happy to lay the foundation stone in the headquarters of the project in Bamenda, making it very important and significant", Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Gabriel Mbairobe.
Overflooding, underflooding has been some of the major challenges faced in the cultivation of rice in the region, a situation the project seeks to ameliorate.