The Dabakala and Katiola districts in the central part of the country are among the poorest in the country, and the indigenous people who comprise the population have the lowest living standards in Côte d’Ivoire. The general objective of the project was to increase agricultural production to address the problems of low rural incomes and regional disparities.

The target group was made up of farming households, mainly smallholders who carried out their operations manually. The project contributed to the restructuring of national extension services to assist farmers in adopting technological improvements and to improve rural productivity. It included pilot components to test the viability of activities such as low-cost land clearing, mixed farming and small farmers’ cooperatives.

The project worked to:

• strengthen and improve extension services through introduction of a training-and-visit system
• provide credit channelled through farmers’ cooperatives for inputs to increase agricultural production
• support an animal traction programme
• promote mixed farming combining livestock with cropping
• establish pilot land-clearing activities
• finance construction of rural roads
• support adaptive research
• reinforce existing farmers’ cooperatives and provide credit through the National Agricultural Development Bank
• upgrade existing roads and the water supply to villages
   

Source: IFAD