By Nasratu Kargbo
Member of Parliament representing Constituency 057 Foday Mario Kamara has said that the country’s agricultural policies are bad. “For years, I’ve been saying here that our agricultural policies are bad,” said Kamara whilst debating on the presidential speech in parliament.
Citing a part of the speech in which President Julius Maada Bio narrated his visit to Vietnam for agricultural purposes, the MP said there was no need for him to visit the country.
Kamara said Sierra Leone does not need to go elsewhere to learn about agriculture because the country has all the natural resources to enable proper agricultural activities.
He emphasized that the country has all it takes to produce what it consumes.
Kamara recalled how he suggested that the government supports local farmers with the school feeding program instead of bringing the World Food Programme (WFP) into the picture.
Constituency 075 MP Abdul Latiff Sesay made mention of the Tomabum project, and that by what was presented to them about the project, by now the country should not be importing rice. However, he stated that it seems the money meant for the project has been used for something else.
“Where is our Tormabum rice?” asked Cecilia Mabinty Bangura from constituency 065. She said the country is still food insecure.
Salieu Osman Sesay representing constituency 038 stated that he is against the government supplying chemical fertilizers to farmers. He explained that the government should have invested in organic farming instead of inorganic farming, which according to the MP depletes the environment.
Sesay said food security according to development experts depends on Accessibility, Availability, and Affordability. He said people cannot afford to buy rice at five hundred thousand.
President Bio in his speech delivered on the 10th May 2022 stated that he met with President Nguyen Xuan Phuc of Vietnam in March, and explained their talks and their signing of three bilateral cooperation documents covering diplomacy, agriculture, and fisheries.
Bio said the government is determined to pursue food security and to establish and develop cooperation ties with Asia-Pacific nations, including Vietnam, to achieve food security.
He said that some of the well-known ways of improving food security are through climate and nutrition-smart agriculture. He stated that the country cannot continue in the old ways of agricultural production in the light of all that we know about the earth and climate.
“Agricultural systems must become more productive, and less wasteful. But above all it must be more sustainable,” the President stated at the time.
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