Roots and Tuber Development Project
Roots and Tubers Development Programme Overview
Presentation
The Roots &Tubers Development Programme (PDRT) aims to reduce poverty by achieving a durable increase in monetary income amongst poor or vulnerable rural households, by improving output at all stages of the production, cultivation and marketing of roots and tubers. This goal is in line with the highest government priorities and also fits with IFAD’s operational priorities and those of the development partners that closely collaborate with the program.
Concretely, the aims are the following:
- improvement of small R&T producers output through the adoption of durable and environmentally friendly practices: use of improved and resistant varieties, integrated fight against destructive pests and improvement of soil fertility;
- elimination of main constraints weighing on production by boosting the activities of local processor women groups and by encouraging them to unite with other village women groups in order to create marketing organizations;
- reinforcement of locally-available means to assess and solve problems encountered in R&T development.
Although it has a national scope, the program limits its support to agro-ecological areas favorable to the cultivation of roots and tubers:
- the Western-Atacora area, where IFAd has been present since 1981;
- the Central cotton area, which includes Northern-Zou and Southern-Borgou ;
- the Southern-Borgou subsistence crop area;
- the area with extremely fertile yet deteriorated soils, known as “sandbar lands” in the South of the country.
This whole area is hit by a very high poverty rate, estimated at 73%. It also represents 72% of the territory, 64% of the total population and 47% of the rural population. It is subdivided into two main sub-regions, one of which is particularly suited to cassava cultivation and the other to yam cultivation. Locally, sweet potato and potato play an important role as a food and income source for particularly vulnerable population groups.
Components
The project includes four components:
- Support to improving productivity
- Support to primary processing and marketing
- Support to basic institutions
- Program management
Duration: 2001-2008
Total amount: 19,280,000 USD
Address
PDRT - 02 BP 164
Parakou - Benin
Mail : pdrt@intnet.bj
Tel : +229 236 126 70
Fax : +229 236 100 56