Therefore the civil society organisations campaign for stricter control of the use of farm land and fertile soil for agrifuel cultivation. The hand-over of a vast acreage of such land to wealthy sponsors, big pundits and Sunday farmers “for agrifuel production” raises both curiosity and fear. The issue was reviewed in minute detail during a two day discussion and awarness raising seminar in Richard Toll (on the northern border of Senegal) on the theme ‘Family farming and agrifuel production - What is at stake for food security and wetlands in Senegal?’. The two NGOs Wetland International and Action Aid, organisers of the event, hit home in their ambition to inform the rural base and primarily concerned, the farmers, of the implications of agrifuel cultivation for subsistence farming and the environment.

At Richard Toll some participants took the opportunity to speak at length of the urgent need to do everything possible to avoid a sell out of rural areas and farm land. To this end the populations concerned, civil society and government delegates agreed that it was absolutely vital that elected local officials in the provinces examined requests for access to farm land with the utmost care. They were asked to avoid giving away land offhandedly ( Ed. Note: abruptly, without restraint and, in this case without taking the consequences into account …) or simply as insider deals or for solely commercial purposes.

Mrs Fatou, who is the co-ordinator of the civil society coalition and in charge of monitoring the agrifuel programme in Senegal, told the audience that the meeting was a follow up of studies carried out by Action Aid and Wetlands International on the impact of agrifuel cultivation on food security as well as on wetlands in Senegal. They wished to share these findings with the parties concerned, the farmers, the civil society, governmental technical agencies and the various partner organisations, she explained. When questioned about the choice of family farming Mrs Mbaye said : ‘Our starting point was the fact that family farming is the basis for the production of subsistence crops in Senegal'. With the arrival of agrifuel cultivation in our country we have realised the risk that farm land, forests and arable acreage could be taken over by agrifuel promotors, at the expense of farming for food production. The present rush to grab farmland will lead to the take-over of enormous land areas for industrial development, to the detriment of food crops, she noted sadly.

Source: Aurticle by Gabriel Barbier, January 11th 2010

In Burkina Faso are we going to wait until it is too late to start the debate on this issue?