Faced with inflation, Côte d’Ivoire wants to bet on its local cereals


A bakery in Abidjan, June 26, 2022 (AFP / Sia KAMBOU)

“We are ready to consume local”. Faced with inflation and the risk of a shortage of wheat caused by the war in Ukraine, Côte d’Ivoire is counting on the use of local foodstuffs, starting with cassava flour to make the much appreciated baguette.

“Everything has become expensive on the market”, plague Honorine Kouamé, a saleswoman in the popular Blockhaus district in Abidjan. “If we can make bread from local cassava flour, it will be better. We are ready to eat locally,” she says.

She has already started to do it and in her incandescent pots, cooks pancakes where she mixes wheat and coconut flour.

In Côte d’Ivoire, a food serves as a compass for the cost of living: the baguette, a “consumer product”, according to the Minister of Economy Adama Coulibaly.

An understatement in a country of some 25 million inhabitants which has 2,500 bakeries and where bread is a central food, all social classes combined.

But Côte d’Ivoire does not produce wheat and imports it, mainly from France. However, the world supply has collapsed – Ukraine and Russia at war being two big producers – and as elsewhere in the world, prices have jumped.

Wheat and cassava baguettes in a bakery in Yopougon, a popular district of Abidjan, on June 24, 2022

Wheat and cassava baguettes in a bakery in Yopougon, a popular district of Abidjan, on June 24, 2022 (AFP/Sia KAMBOU)

To prevent this increase from being passed on to the consumer, the government – albeit a liberal one – has chosen to cap the price of the baguette at between 150 and 200 CFA francs (22 and 30 euro cents) depending on the weight, and a subsidy of 6.4 billion CFA francs (about 10 million euros) has been released to compensate Ivorian bakers.

But another more sustainable solution is favored by bakers and the government alike: introducing cassava flour into bread making.

With 6.4 million tons produced each year in Côte d’Ivoire, cassava is the second local crop after yam.

– Bread with “new flavors” –

However, it remains to seduce the Ivorian consumer.

“The bet is not won. Because for the Ivorian, cassava bread is associated with poor quality bread. Consumers will have to be made aware of these new flavors”, considers René Diby, baker, and such a change must be preceded by “an increased awareness campaign”.

The use of a small portion of this flour would already make it possible to somewhat relieve the finances of the Ivorian State.

Last year, 10% of its national budget of 152 billion euros was spent on importing food, despite fertile soils.

Bakery workers mix wheat and cassava flour to make their baguettes, in Abidjan on June 24, 2022.

Bakery workers mix wheat and cassava flour to make their baguettes, in Abidjan on June 24, 2022 (AFP/Sia KAMBOU)

“We are in favor of this integration of cereals produced locally. This will make it possible to relaunch cassava production, to maintain the level of the price of bread”, estimates Jean Baptiste Koffi, president of the consumer confederation of Côte d’Ivoire who wants promote “local consumption”.

“Producing bread made from local cereals can be the solution to deal with food crises”, confirms Marius Abé Aké, president of the federation of bakers in Côte d’Ivoire.

Against rising prices, Ranie-Didice Bah Koné, executive secretary of the National Council for the Fight against High Cost of Living (CNLCV, state), believes that it is time to exploit the agricultural potential of Côte d’Ivoire.

“It’s about thinking in the long term, about our food security, it’s about thinking about how Côte d’Ivoire is going to ensure that it is less dependent on world prices,” she said.

– “African bakery” –

During the visit to Abidjan of a modern cassava flour processing factory which employs around forty women, she called for the implementation of immediate measures to increase the supply of local flour, in addition to subsidies for the sector. wheat.

Côte d’Ivoire is not the only one concerned: on July 19, Ivorian bakers will travel to Dakar for a regional meeting with their West African neighbors.

Preparation of cassava before mixing it with wheat flour in a bakery in Abobo, Abidjan, on June 23, 2022

Preparation of cassava before mixing it with wheat flour in a bakery in Abobo, Abidjan, on June 23, 2022 (AFP/Sia KAMBOU)

The objective is to create a bakery confederation which will be able to promote “the incorporation of local foodstuffs in the manufacture of bread up to 15%”, specified Mr. Aké.

“We need to make African bakery, to help lower manufacturing costs, fight against poverty and save us from harmful social movements,” he continues.

Even if the situation there is less critical than in other poorer countries, Côte d’Ivoire does not want to relive the hunger riots that shook it in 2008 when the prices of consumer goods such as rice, the milk or the meat had flambéed.

© 2022 AFP

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