20101018
africanews

The United Nations has warned that Niger must control its population growth to prevent further food crises after foreign aid helped to solve 80 percent of the west African country's needs during this year's food crisis.

Niger's military government had called for hundreds of millions of dollars in food aid for half of Niger's population after lack rains fail affected the production crops and cattle in the uranium rich country.

"There are recurrent food crises, but there is also a very high growth in population, which could go from 15 million today to about 50 million in 2050," Reuters quoted United Nations' top aid official Valerie Amos as saying.

"I don't think Niger's agricultural production, which is already vulnerable to climate change, can sustain this and so we need, amongst other things, better family planning policies" Amos added.

Spokesman for the junta that seized power in a February coup, Colonel Abdoul Karim Goukoye has said the newly-created Nigerien food security agency, HASA, would develop programmes to improve food security.