Catholic Relief Services Looks to Food Crisis

(27 Sep 08 - RV) The global food crisis has seen prices of staples such as rice sky-rocket, a phenomenon that has had serious repercussions in developing countries, which had previously found it cheaper to import food than to produce it themselves. The official international humanitarian agency of the US Catholic community, Catholic Relief Services has responded with an initiative aimed at helping small-scale rice farmers in Africa increase their productivity, thereby raising incomes and putting more food on the market, which they hope will lower prices. We spoke to the Principal Agricultural Advisor for CRS in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, Tom Remington…