Desenvolvimento rural e segurança alimentar no Benin.

Abstract

Agricultural policy in Benin supports the development of productive chain intended for export, maintain the support and fortification of family farming and food security. This dual model of agricultural development follows the historic strategies adopted by the nations whose anchor is the rural development, like Brazil, which maintains rural credit policies and harvest plans contemplating production aimed at the domestic market. Due to the importance of agriculture and urbanization, Benin is supporting the modernization of rural production, focusing on the sustainable development. For this reason, the goal of this research, characterized as exploratory-descriptive and analytical, was to analyze the evolution of the production of cotton, soybean, cassava, and corn as wells as the contributions to the rural development and food security of Benin population, in the time of 1970-2021. A quantitative analysis model was applied to the data from FAO and from Benin government to estimate the production growth rate and the indicators of specialization and production of crops representing the exported (cotton and soybean) and the subsistence (cassava and corn) segments. It was concluded that agricultural policy implemented in Benin are meeting the rural development, via modernization of export crop, and to the goals of ensuring the subsistence and food security to the population. Between 2009 and 2020, the cotton production increased 16.27% per year, and soybean production increased 16.69% per year. Also, cassava and corn production increased at the rates of 1.42% and 3.60% per year, respectively. The Benin agricultural policy promoted specialization of states from crops studied, with emphasis on the increase in cultivates area and land productivity, especially in the 2009-2020 period.