Fighting Disease:  Guinea

Increasing Food Production

Sasakawa-Global 2000, a joint venture between The Carter Center and the Sasakawa Africa Association — led by the Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Norman Borlaug until his death in 2009 — began teaching Guinean farmers how to use new technologies to increase crop production in 1986. This effort, in collaboration with the Guinea Ministry of Agriculture, is part of a larger initiative that has helped more than 8 million small-scale sub-Saharan African farmers learn new farming techniques to double or triple grain production.

The prescription was simple: Farmers were provided with credit for fertilizers and seeds to grow production test plots. Following successful harvests, which usually exceed previous harvests by 200 to 400 percent, farmers taught their neighbors about the new technologies, creating a ripple effect to stimulate food self-sufficiency in the nation.

In 1996, activities concentrated on studying the constraints and possible technical solutions to increasing production of the country's main food crop, rice. About 80 percent of Guinea's rice is produced in rain-fed upland areas, where farmers have been using slash-and-burn methods, moving on to new land after several growing cycles and encroaching constantly into the forest zone, which provides an important source of rain for several West African countries. Read full text >