Mary Hawa John-Sao
The Vice President of the National Farmers' Federation says 75% of those killed by Ebola in Sierra Leone are farmers in especially Kailahun and Kenema districts, the two hardest-hit areas.
Mary Hawa John-Sao warns that this would heighten hunger in the country as most farmers were without farm to harvest and enough food to eat.
Her warning comes as the UN World Food Programme launched a US$ 70 million regional emergency operation to reach 1.3 million people in health centres and quarantined areas in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.
Mary said the farmers "are not hard at work this year" with able-bodied young men who used to help on the farm not helping out this year because of Ebola.
"When you invite...people to work for you they won't accept it [because] they don't want to mingle because of Ebola" she said, adding that that had put most farmers out of business.
Mary, who won a medal last year for her large-scale farming, told Politico that the situation was bad for the country's food security. She doubted "whether farmers will have food to eat next year" something she said would impact hugely on the general populace.
"People do not have much food to eat" she said, adding that at a time like this farmers who should be harvesting were either locked in quarantines or had not been able to grow crops due to the outbreak.
"[There is] no food...I want donors to please come in with food. If not Sierra Leone will go back and be zero especially on food consumption" Mary said, adding that prices of foodstuffs had gone up.
But Minister of Agriculture, Dr Sam Sesay said there was yet no hunger in the country.
"We cannot say people are hungry because of the fact that sweet potato and cassava are available and then the food supplies under case management on the government programme wherein we have a package of food being supplied to persons and houses that are being quarantined" he said, adding that this had "helped a lot".
Dr Sesay admitted that the disease had wiped out many families especially in Kailahun many of whom he said were farmers, saying coming as it did in May at a time when "the farming season was at its peak", many farms were abandoned as a result.
The minister said "that is definitely going to affect both food and export crop production" and agreed that "in due course - towards the dry season - we will begin to see more negative impact".
(C) Politico 04/09/14
