Issouf Ouattara, sales manager of the Lopé lowlands in the Hambol Region, Côte d’Ivoire, shares a laugh with Sali Soro, smallholder rice farmer (Photo by Raphaela Karlen, World Bank)
The second post of this blog series illustrated the potential for poverty reduction through value chain development (VCD) in Africa. This is an approach that Côte d’Ivoire hopes will work for its rice farmers. During the 2008 world food crisis, rice prices tripled in a matter of months, and the Government of Côte d’Ivoire got to work on a National Rice Development Strategy. With more than half of the country’s rising demand for rice being met by imports, which could in principle be produced locally, the strategy aims to create self-sufficiency when it comes to rice production.
