By Bampia James Bundu
Executive secretary of the Sierra Leone Chamber of Agribusiness Development has warned that there is a possibility for people to starve after the Ebola virus will have subsided in the country.
Ahmed Nanoh told a press conference in Freetown that the Ebola outbreak had “rendered farmers useless and agricultural materials are languishing”, adding that the outbreak had scared farmers away from their farms. He said the farmers had been and continued to receive conflicting messages about Ebola.
Nanoh said that before the disease struck local farmers had produced rice and other foodstuffs in large quantities that helped feed the country. He said the country needed a robust Ebola sensitization campaign that would prevent local farmers from abandoning their farms for fear that they could be infected by the virus.
“Our farmers cannot continue to sit at homewhile the whole nation starves to death,” the executive secretary said, adding that farmers needed to only take precautionary measures prescribed by health officials so as to continue farming. He called on government to help allay the fear of farmers and get them back to work.
He warned that country must prepare itself for post-Ebola challenges, adding that “we don’t want to see people starving to death afterwards”.
CEO of Bennimix, Dr. Joseph Bahsoon, revealed that most of the foreign owned manufacturers had left the country because of Ebola and that most of the local ones were shutting down their businesses. He urged government to help the farming industry because “they constitute 75% of the country’s population”.
The head of Kentinwama Farm, Ken Farma, urged government to begin to put measures in place as “there will be life after Ebola”.
The public relations officer at the ministry of agriculture, Abubakarr Daramy, said the Ebola outbreak had affected many agricultural activities. He however stated that all 13 agricultural district offices were still operational.
“The 65 block of extension offices are operational, all 68 community banks are operational and all 392 agricultural business centres are still functional and are being run by farmer-based organizations,” he said, adding that the virus had stopped farmers from working in groups as they used to. “They now work individually with their families,” he said.
(C) Politico 23/09/14
