The Regional Directorate for Agriculture, Animal and Fisheries Resources in the North in collaboration with the Food System Resilience Program in West Africa, Burkina Faso component (PRSA-BF), organized a training workshop from July 31 to August 4, 2023 in Ouahigouya for the benefit of the executives of the decentralized early warning system (SAP) system on the concepts of food security, nutrition and early warning.

The SAP (early warning system) relays and heads of technical support area (ZAT) from the provinces of Passoré, Zondoma, Loroum and Yatenga in various sectors of activity were trained on the concepts of security food, nutrition and early warning.

This involved strengthening their technical capacities on the concepts of food security, food crisis, hazard, risk and systems for collecting and calculating nutritional values.

Thus, during the 5 days, communications on the food security monitoring system, the operation of the SAP, the nutritional data collection files and the household consumption survey were delivered.

According to the trainer, Vincent Naty, food security is the fact of ensuring that everyone and at all times has economic, social and physical access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their nutritional needs and food preferences to enable them to lead a healthy and active life.

“And to talk about food security, these 4 dimensions of availability, accessibility, use and stability must be brought together,” he said.

But contrary to food security, self-sufficiency, to hear it, is the ability to satisfy all the food needs of a population through national production alone.

As for the notion of hazard, Mr. Naty explained that it is a dangerous natural or anthropogenic phenomenon capable of causing death and damage.

“When the phenomenon occurs, we speak of a disaster. Its management involves mitigation, repair, intervention, restoration and recovery. he explained.

In his opinion, it is through the data contained in the early warning system (EWS) that the government can avoid or reduce the shock of risks.

And the representative of the regional director in charge of agriculture, Oumarou Gnondogo, moreover, provincial director in charge of agriculture to appreciate that these five days of training were of a very beneficial contribution for them.

“Now we can differentiate between the concepts of food security and food self-sufficiency, so we know how to calculate the food consumption of a household,” he said.

Source: Burkina Information Agency