VZCZCXRO1059
PP RUEHMA RUEHPA
DE RUEHDK #0497/01 1201712
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 291712Z APR 08
FM AMEMBASSY DAKAR
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 0393
INFO RUEHZK/ECOWAS COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHDC
RUCPDOC/USDOC WASHDC
RUEHRC/USDA WASHDC
RUEHLMC/MCC WASHDC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 DAKAR 000497 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
SENSITIVE 
 
DEPT FOR AF/W, AF/RSA, AF/EPS, EB/ESC/IEC, DRL AND INR/AA 
USDOC FOR 4510/IEP/ANESA/OA/PMICHELINI 
USDA FOR FAS/OCRA/SDIABY, FAS/OCBD/PSIMMONS, FAS/OGA/DADAMS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV EAID EAGR PREL PINS KDEM ECON SG
SUBJECT: WADE LAUNCHES GOANA AS RESPONSE TO FOOD SHORTAGES 
 
REF:  A) DAKAR 424, B) DAKAR 236 
 
DAKAR 00000497  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Summary: In response to increasing reports of current and 
future food shortages in Senegal (Reftels), on April 18, President 
Abdoulaye Wade launched a confusing and fiscally questionable 
initiative he claimed will address current food insecurity and 
greatly increase future agricultural production.  The initiative 
called GOANA (Grand Agricultural Offensive for Nutrition and 
Abundance) aims to boost production through mechanization, improved 
seeds, fertilizers and farming techniques, and to attract new 
investments by political and business elites into agricultural 
enterprises.  It also includes significant government outlays for 
energy subsidies and new technology, including cloud-seeding 
airplanes.  This overly ambitious plan is Wade's latest political 
response to a difficult food situation that is eroding his 
popularity.  END SUMMARY. 
 
A Land of Milk and Rice 
----------------------- 
 
¶2.  (U) With members of his cabinet, parliamentarians and municipal 
executives gathered around him, President Wade asserted that there 
never has been famine in Senegal.  He adamantly stated that there 
will be no food riots in Senegal.  Instead, the implementation of 
GOANA, his new program to boost agricultural self-sufficiency, would 
start this summer with an increase of rice production from its 
current level of 215,212 metric tons (MT) to five hundred thousand 
tons in 2008, an increase of 400 percent.  For 2008, Wade also 
announced targets of two million metric tons for maize production 
compared to 185,000 MT in 2007 (Note: All figures are those provided 
by the government. End Note.), three million tons for cassava 
compared 121,000 MT in 2007 and two million tons for cereals 
compared to 884,652 MT (to include 120,334 MT sorghum and 362,852 MT 
millet) in 2007.  Asked whether the crop expansion is realistic, 
Prime Minister Cheikh Hadjibou Soumare said, "Wade's GOANA is really 
ambitious, and one has to be ambitious in Africa."  As for milk 
production, almost nonexistent now, the target has been set at four 
hundred million liters.  Senegal spends over two hundred billion CFA 
(USD five hundred million) per year importing rice and milk. 
President Wade also touted his government's record on electricity 
and cooking gas subsidies as an important complement to the fight 
against rising prices and the improvement of consumers' purchasing 
power. 
 
¶3.  (U) Other measures promoted by Wade under the GOANA proposal 
include the purchase of two planes for CFA five billion (USD 12 
million) for cloud-seeding to provoke artificial rains.  Wade also 
promoted a new agriculture investment scheme that urges government 
ministers, members of the National Assembly and the Senate, senior 
civil servants, and private sector leaders to cultivate at least 
twenty hectares of land.  Local authorities are to have additional 
control over the collection and sale of the harvests.  [Note: it is 
not clear how these new plantations will be accorded to elites, but 
there is concern that existing small-holder farms will be 
disadvantaged.  End note.]  Wade claimed that he does not need any 
money from international partners to support his plan, but 
nevertheless urged the latter to provide quality seeds, equipment 
and efficient agricultural materials, fertilizer, and adequate 
technical assistance. In a separate statement Wade announced that he 
had secured a promise from Indian Prime Minister Singh to supply 
Senegal with 600,000 MT of rice for the next six years.  A call to 
the Indian Embassy was met with skepticism that India would sell 15 
percent of its yearly surplus to one country and they could not 
confirm the veracity of Wade's statement. 
 
Food Plan is "False Hope" 
------------------------- 
 
¶4.  (SBU) The idea behind GOANA is to end imports and promote 
self-reliance and self-sufficiency.  Commenting on the plan, Robert 
Sagna, a former Minister of Agriculture and current Mayor of 
Ziguinchor, and an agronomist by trade, told Poloff: "Wade actually 
does not believe in the plan.  He never said how much he will invest 
to make it happen and where the money will come from. In effect he 
will take from Peter to give to Paul. Furthermore, the plan is too 
late to be implemented this year.  We do not have enough seeds or 
fertilizer and even if we did, they should have been planted in 
March."  In Sagna's view, Wade's entourage "lacks rural sensitivity" 
because they are an "urban aristocracy" without the "fiber for 
farming".  He noted that in Ziguinchor, a major peanut processing 
plant stands idle due to a deficit in production and that the rice 
fields of the Casamance are being tilled by aging farmers who are 
not fit for intensive labor and who also face the problem of salt 
invasion in their fields.  In Senegal's northern River Valley, where 
 
DAKAR 00000497  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
two hundred and forty thousand hectares of land are available, he 
noted that the issue of land tenure will be a big hurdle to Wade's 
plan.  Sagna thinks that the plan is no more than a catalogue of 
false hope and warned that unless there is rain this summer, food 
riots would be inevitable.  FAS Agricultural Attache has conducted 
informal surveys among stakeholders and confirms that Senegal will 
be in a difficult position to significantly increase cereal 
production, mainly due to a lack of quality inputs and the means to 
purchase them.  Seed quality is extremely poor, even for Senegal's 
most important crops, as the national system of seed research, 
propagation and farmer extension is effectively broken.  Due to a 
lack of rural credit, farmers will need to rely on subsidies or 
donor interventions for both seeds and fertilizer, and it is nearly 
too late for the 2008 campaign. 
 
Aid Not Alms 
------------ 
 
¶5.  (U) The GOANA meeting also became a forum for President Wade to 
expound his views on aid.  He ruthlessly criticized NGOs and the UN 
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) positing that "food aid is a 
vast swindle orchestrated by NGOs to the detriment of recipient 
countries."  Using an anecdote from Niger he explained why he 
refuses to call for food aid; "President Tandja told me that out of 
USD 98 million allegedly collected a couple of years ago for food 
aid, Niger only received three."  He denounced what he called "false 
doctors, caretakers of famine who provide life support to patients 
[i.e. poor African countries] for the sole purpose of collecting 
aid."  He declared as alarmist a warning by Jacques Diouf (A 
Senegalese and head of the FAO) who said last week that food riots 
in developing countries would spread unless the world took steps to 
reduce food prices for the poor.  Wade opined that the coming Rome 
Conference on famine should not be a round table where FAO begs on 
behalf of African countries and asked that FAO stop taking twenty 
percent of collected funds for its operation costs.  "I don't want 
the FAO to become forever an outstretched hand for Africa," Wade 
said.  For Wade, some partners "do not have Africa's emergence from 
destitution as their primary concern."  He called for concrete aid 
in the form of equipment, seeds, fertilizers, and know-how. 
 
More Immediate Measures 
----------------------- 
 
¶6.  (U) According to the World Food Program, the most vulnerable 
population in Senegal numbers about 660,000 in seven departments and 
the food assistance needs in those departments are about 29,000 
tons.  Some experts believe the WFP assessment significantly 
understates the hunger risk in Senegal.  Prior to the announcement 
of GOANA, the government had taken some concrete steps to help 
stabilize the price of daily commodities, including the suspension 
of customs duties and the elimination of VAT on wheat, rice, and 
milk, and rolling back vegetable oil price increases previously 
imposed by the country's dominant processor and importer, SUNEOR. 
In addition, the GOS proposed the creation of price reference 
grocery outlets, the decrease of income tax by CFA 6 billion (USD 12 
million), and has fixed ceilings on internal transportation costs of 
imported rice in order to control its retail price in remote 
regions.  The government also has set reference prices for rice and 
many other commodities.  Though the GOS estimates the cost of these 
measures at CFA 152 billion (USD 361 million), including CFA 98 
billion (USD 233 million) from cooking butane gas and electricity 
subsidies, it remains difficult to confirm the reliability of these 
numbers, with actual government commitments being higher.  According 
to a senior member of the presidency, aside from reducing civil 
servant salaries, President Wade is prepared to make any budgetary 
cuts necessary to support food prices. 
 
French Ambassador's reaction 
---------------------------- 
¶7.  (U) French Ambassador Jean Christophe Rufin, who spent several 
years working in NGOs, commented in an interview that it would be at 
least ten years before dietary self-sufficiency can be attained in 
Senegal.  He then urged the reform of the banking system so that 
farmers could have access to credit to produce two harvests. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶8. (SBU) In reality, the announcement of GOANA is largely a 
political gambit to buy time until the coming rainy season brings 
(hopefully) relief in the form of improved harvests at the end of 
the summer.  Meanwhile, Wade will play on the traditional Senegalese 
notion that an inability to feed oneself is shameful and will seek 
to appeal to people's ingrained sense of stoicism.  However, the 
 
DAKAR 00000497  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
government plan to increase domestic production will do little for 
many (if not most) Senegalese families who do not suffer from a lack 
of supply but a lack of purchasing power.  With millions of 
Senegalese likely are already skipping their mid-day meals, more 
concrete steps by the GOS are required, such as securing and 
pre-positioning food aid (with or without donor assistance).  The 
budget implications of rushed and overly-optimistic production 
schemes, technologies, and subsidies also must be seriously 
addressed.  This includes the country's energy subsidies, which, at 
up to three percent of GDP, the IMF and donors note have been a 
major cause of the country's persistent budget deficit, and have 
detracted from the country's ability to improve agricultural 
production. 
 
SMITH