A detailed account of cereal banks is presented in
Annex 5. While the concept of community cereal banks in
terms of improving food security of vulnerable communities
is clearly appealing to many agencies, sustainability is a
huge problem (CRS 1998). Documentation on cereal banks
is limited, making it difficult to get accurate figures of the
investment in cereal banks, but it has certainly been significant in the Sahel region. Typically, cereal banks depend on
external support; and if that support does not identify and
take into consideration enabling factors nor does not provide
sustainable solutions and ceases, most cereal banks seem to
become bankrupt. The reasons for the weaknesses of most
cereal banks were summarized as follows: