With over 35% of the population beneath the poverty line in Benin, the impact of rising food prices has potentially serious implications for nutrition and health. Almost a quarter of children under 5 years are already underweight. According to the World Bank, in the first half of 2008 the Benin government spent nearly 10% of the national budget on subsidies and other measures to hold down food prices, a strategy which the Bank describes as “unsustainable”. Despite record harvests in 2007, the country is dependent on food imports.

Agriculture accounts for a third of GNP and employs over half of the population including many small subsistence farmers struggling to afford higher input prices. The government has launched the Emergency Food Security Programme which aims to boost domestic production in 2008 by subsidising the price of fertilizer and improving the infrastructure for seed distribution.

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