Raging Waters: Senegal River Floods Put Mauritania’s Agricultural Future at Risk

The movement to protect the rights of farmers expects vegetable prices to continue to rise in the Mauritanian market, due to the floods besieging agricultural areas, which will lead to the impossibility of agricultural production this season.

This came during an interview with the Secretary General of the Movement for the Protection of Farmers’ Rights, Muhammad al-Imam Muhammad Abdullah, with the Sahara 24 channel, Monday night / Tuesday night, where he said, “There will be no production in this regard. season, and accordingly the market will depend on the product that comes in, and “It will cause vegetable prices to rise.”

Ould Mohamed Abdallah said, “The self-sufficiency that the government talked about before will witness a decline.”

In recent years, the Mauritanian government launched an agricultural plan that aims to ensure self-sufficiency in food.

The Corona pandemic and the Russian-Ukrainian war prompted the government to double the agricultural budget in Mauritania In the original budget law this year, it amounted to more than four billion new ouguiya, emphasizing that its efforts are focused on achieving self-sufficiency in the field food.

The government also took measures that would increase the competitiveness of national production and stimulate producers, including raising the level of tax on certain vegetables that compete with local products to 39.23% during peak production between January and April and reducing the level of tax to a minimum of 3.53% on certain mechanisms. And agricultural inputs to encourage their import, as well as subsidizing fertilizers by 37% for urea, 45% free for compound fertilizers, subsidizing the rest by 55%, and subsidizing 50% for vegetable fertilizers and herbicides , follow up on the electrification of production areas, and strengthen agricultural extension by recruiting 45 technicians and providing a means of transport and start In a re-study related to agricultural financing and insurance:

But the government’s efforts are failing A new reality imposed by the flooding of the Senegal River which has been sweeping the West Bank area for weeks, reaching … “The agricultural areas affected by the floods are between 7,000 and 8,000 hectares,” according to the National Movement for the Protection of Farmers’ Rights.

The General Secretary added that “last year, they exported five hundred thousand tons of vegetables, while exports are almost non-existent this year.”

Ould Muhammad Abdullah described the situation in the West Bank areas as a real disaster, and that “the local population has been greatly affected,” and noted that “42 rice hulling factories with their workers will be harmed and the workers will be dismissed.”

The Secretary General warned that “the authorities are facing many challenges,” and if they do not take appropriate measures, workers in the agricultural sector will abandon their work, which will lead to a worsening of “the living situation of the population and the future production situation.”