EALA MP Roots for Irrigation for Assured Food Security

If EAC region wants to make hunger history, irrigation farming is the way to go according EALA MP Hon.Frederic Ngenzebuhoro (Burundi).

The legislator lamented that EAC was blessed with massive water bodies yet continued to experience hunger by largely depending on rain fed agriculture.

Using Burkina Faso as an example of a country that has done well using irrigation faring, he said it has about 3 months rain season in a year.  The rain water is reserved and through irrigation the country producesadequate food for home consumption and export, he informed.

Many parts of EAC experiences tworain seasons in a year (about 6 month in total) yet when the rain fails hunger comes knocking because most of the farming is dependent on rainfall, thus susceptible to vagrancies of nature.

The MP was of the opinion that if water from the rain and water bodies in the region could be harnessed for irrigation, EAC would become a major food producer.

Hon.Frederic Ngenzebuhoronoted that Egypt and Ethiopia were using water from the Nile (fed by rivers from EAC) for irrigation, while EAC was lagging behind in irrigation farming.

The MP called for the region to seriously work on irrigation farming to make hunger history in the region.