SOUTHERN PROVINCE

NYANZA — There is food security in the Southern Province, the area’s Governor, Fidele Ndayisaba has said.

In an interview with The New Times on Friday, Governor Ndayisaba said the green revolution campaign has resulted in high food production of many selected crops grown in the province, although more effort is needed in the next planting season.

"Last season we cultivated over 10,000ha of cassava in the different districts of the province and now farmers have started harvesting their produce. This is a big boost to food security,” said Ndayisaba.

The Governor said that districts are putting into place cassava processing plants for value addition.

He revealed that two high standard cassava processing plants will be set up in the province.

Governor Ndayisaba said that 20,000ha are targeted for the cultivation of cassava in the next planting season.

This will go along with the intensive cultivation of crops like wheat, coffee, tea and Irish potatoes which have been seen to do well in many parts of the province.

On the issue of increasing food prices on the market, Ndayisaba said that like the rest of the country and the world at large, the province is no exception largely because most foodstuffs like rice and wheat are being imported.

"We need to boost our production levels if we are to control high prices for foodstuffs. We need to have proper management of marshlands and use them for food production,” he said.

On the issue of genocide ideology, Ndayisaba said that the province was on the right track scaling down the vice among residents. He, however, admitted that it is a big task.

"Our population was poisoned by this ideology for many years. But we shall not wait for the same period to wipe it out; we have laid strategies and statistics show that we are on a down ward trend as regards genocide ideology in the province,” he said.

A recent report on the situation of Genocide survivors released by the association of Genocide survivors (IBUKA), indicates that Southern Province comes highest in the number of Genocide survivors.

According to the RDF commander of the 4th Division, Brig. Gen. Mubarak Muganga, measures have been put in place to eradicate the ideology in the populace.

"We need concerted efforts in mobilising our population to steer clear of genocide ideology tendencies. These efforts have begun paying off as demonstrated by the declining number of such cases from the year 2003,” said Muganga.

Ends