Dakar, Senegal (PANA) – A former Senegalese football star, El Hadji Diouf, and the US-based Senegalese musician, Alioune Badara Thiam, popularly called “Akon” announced last Friday their intention to invest in the cultivation of rice in Senegal.
“We tell the Senegalese population that if we want to attain self-sufficiency in rice, we should believe in our capacity. This is not only my project or that of Akon but of all the Senegalese population,” Diouf told a press conference attended by the Agriculture and Rural Equipment Minister, Pape Abdoulaye Seck.
He estimated that a country cannot be really free if it is threatened by food insecurity.
“What shall we do if tomorrow the countries that sell rice to us close their doors?” he asked.
Diouf called on fellow Senegalese to return to agriculture which, he said, “represents the future of the country.”
Also speaking, the minister welcomed the initiative, saying “this is a great day for the Senegalese population.”
He promised to do everything to help the country become self-sufficient in food.
“Food security is an element of independence but definitively the strongest, the most significant and the most decisive,” Seck emphasized, saying “God willing, we’ll again be seen here in this hall in 2017 to say that there is no imported rice in the port in Dakar and that Senegal is feeding its population.”
Senegal is the second biggest consumer of rice in West Africa after Nigeria. It imports a million tons of rice annually.
Local production represents only about 30 per cent of the needs of the country, according to official statistics.
