{"id":6388,"date":"2019-02-12T12:16:34","date_gmt":"2019-02-12T12:16:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/?p=6388"},"modified":"2019-11-06T08:22:08","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T08:22:08","slug":"greenpeace-africa-calls-for-the-promotion-of-traditional-farming-to-reduce-dependence-of-food-imports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/press\/6388\/greenpeace-africa-calls-for-the-promotion-of-traditional-farming-to-reduce-dependence-of-food-imports\/","title":{"rendered":"Greenpeace Africa calls for the promotion of traditional farming to reduce dependence of food imports"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In response to news that the government of Cameroon has lost over 9 000 billion FCFA from importing rice, corn, sugar and fish, Greenpeace Africa Forest Campaigner, Sylvie Djacbou, has said:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt is troubling that a country endowed with a lot of ecological agriculture potential should be importing basic foodstuffs worth billions of FCFA at the detriment of the local economy. This is a reality check for the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to get its act together and abandon its reliance on imports.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cCameroon produces rice in the Far North, West and North West regions, but national demand far outweighs supply. \u00a0During the 2011 Agropastoral Show, President Paul Biya promised to curb excessive dependence on foreign importation of basic foodstuff, but there are still no measures to promote sustainable farming in Cameroon.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cGreenpeace Africa believes that the latest scandal presents an opportunity to revive and encourage traditional and ecological farming practices. This form of farming enabled Cameroon to export basic foodstuff until 1975. This will also strengthen food security and long term sustainability of Cameroon&#8217;s agricultural sector.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cFor many decades, the government has been paying lip service to reduce food imports and improving and modernising the agricultural sector in Cameroon. Government initiatives like the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Societe de Transformation du Manioc de Sangmelima<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (SOTRAMAS) were being designed to stimulate local production but Cameroonians are yet to see any benefits. It would be detrimental and catastrophic for the government to continue with business as usual.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Media Contact:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nchemty M. Ozongashu,\u00a0<\/span>Communications Officer &#8211; Greenpeace Africa,\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:nmetimio@greenpeace.org\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">nmetimio@greenpeace.org<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">677-345-612<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In response to news that the government of Cameroon has lost over 9 000 billion FCFA from importing rice, corn, sugar and fish, Greenpeace Africa Forest Campaigner, Sylvie Djacbou, has&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":6389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[27,37,44],"p4-page-type":[14],"class_list":["post-6388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-protecttheenvironment","tag-farming","tag-food","tag-cameroon","p4-page-type-press"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6388"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6392,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6388\/revisions\/6392"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6388"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=6388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}