‘Food security is still a challenge for Seychelles’ – FAO rep |18 January 2020

President Faure welcomes Dr Takoukam to State House (Photo: Thomas Meriton)

President Danny Faure yesterday met the representative of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) for Mauritius, Madagascar, Comoros and the Seychelles, Dr Patrice Talla Takoukam at state house on his final visit as FAO representative.

After six years Dr Takoukam will be assuming the post of head for the FAO Sub regional office of Southern Africa based in Zimbabwe.

Speaking to the press after his visit Dr Takoukam noted that he and the president discussed the assistance Seychelles has been able to benefit from FAO in different sub-sectors from agriculture and the government over the years.

“We also discussed the priorities of different sectors given that the Seychelles is a small island developing country who still faces a number of challenges as far as agriculture is concerned such as farm land.

“It is important to be able to assist local farmers so that they can produce more and have access to the local market, it is also important to encourage young farmers and give them the necessities they need to continue in the field,” said Dr Takoukam.

He added that the country has to work on its food security starting with the local production as the level of importation of food versus the level of local products has different impacts on the quality of what the populations need.

“The country invests a lot of money to import food and if they invested half of that funding on the local agricultural sector it will reduce the level of importation and boost the quality of food,” the doctor remarked.

He noted that they are currently on the basis of the new Country Programming Framework for 2018-2021.

With regard to food security Dr Takoukam added that we are not totally safe because the food that is produced locally is not enough to feed the entire population including the five thousand tourists that travel to Seychelles each day.

He added that the country needs to put emphasis on local products in order to become more self-sufficient.

Christophe Zialor