CAADP Compact: Benin signed the CAADP Compact on 15 – 16 October 2009.
Capacity Building: Technical experts were deployed to Benin from 19 - 25 September 2010 to undertake independent technical reviews of its National Agricultural Investment Plan (NAIP). Benin is currently implementing its NAIP.
Demand-driven, modular, short-term pilot measures for agricultural training (along selected value chains) were offered by public and private agricultural training institutions for 200 young ‘agripreneurs’ of which 120 were women. Capacities were also enhanced in agricultural skills and entepreneurial and commercial knowledge for trainers, youth and women in selected agricultural training centres in Benin, Burkina Faso and Togo (over 3 000, with women constituting about 30 per cent).
Business: NEPAD facilitated Benin’s first Business Meeting to review progress made in agriculture investment on 6 – 7 June 2011.
Funding: Benin received funding from the Global Agriculture and Food Security Programme (GAFSP) to a tune of USD 24 million.
Results:
- Budget allocation to agriculture increased to 11,71 per cent in 2015, just above the CAADP recommended 10 per cent;
- There was record food production in 2009-2010 as a result of more farmers growing cereals because of the distribution of free seed and fertilizer. The downside was a reduction in cotton production;
- In 2011, as part of the PSRSA, action was undertaken to promote six sectors (maize, rice, pineapple, market gardens, poultry, and fish/shrimps) whose value chains had been defined through consultations with all stakeholders;
- Implementation of the PSRSA has borne a number of positive results, of which mechanisation is of one them. Agricultural mechanisation has seen Beninese farmers sow huge cultivable areas. The government has acquired and made available to producers a consignment of agricultural equipment, consisting of 450 tractors, coupled with the necessary equipment and accessories;
- In the period 2014-2015, there were small increases in the production of maize, legumes, root and tuber crops and vegetables. Industrial crops saw an increase of 12, 88 per cent. Cereal production however decreased by 7,65 per cent due to drought and flooding in different regions of the country;
- In 2010, the government indicated that economic policy would be directed at grassroots and regional development. Actions to achieve this goal include improving basic infrastructure, construction of factories to build agricultural machinery, irrigation development, modernising cotton ginning factories and small-scale food processing, as well as sustainable land management.
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