A woman works on a farm in rural Freetown
By Mastapha Sesay
There are indications that Sierra Leone will experience sharp increase in food insecurity as the rains intensify in the next few months.
Sources indicate the country will face an estimated of 49 percent in food insecurity. This development will represent a significant rise against last year’s World Food Program (WFP)’s food insecurity survey report which revealed that 43 percent of the country’s population were affected by food insecurity; that number represented about 2.5 million people.
“The food security situation is chronically poor in Sierra Leone, at the time of the survey, it was affecting 2, 580, 000 people, and corresponding to 43 percent of the population of which 7 percent (420,000) are insecure,” the 2015 report reads in part.
It adds: “This situation implies that a high economic vulnerability which translates into an excessive share of household total expenditures account for by food purchased.”
Food vulnerability has remained a key challenge for people who live in rural communities as they largely depend on subsistence farming as a source of livelihoods. And the situation of hunger in the country most times get worsen during the raining season.
Abass Kamara, programs Coordinator, Sierra Leone Network on the Right to Food (SiLNoRF), who is based in the north of the country, remarked in an interview with Politico that there was a marked difference between food availability and affordability in the country. He explained that there was no food shortage in the country but that the ability to buy it had remained a key challenge to majority of the households in the country, more especially for those in the provincial areas.
He said that largely majority of the food stuff in the country were imported and that agricultural productivity was relatively poor in their operational areas, which include Bombali and Tonkolili districts.
“Low agriculture activity is a serious problem in Bombali and Tonkolili. Many people have abandoned farms for mining activities or surface rent paid by mining companies which cannot even take care of their needs for quarter of the year,” he said, adding: “but mining is not the only reason why people are doing farming. Soil fertility has become another challenge in the north. Swamps are no longer fertile and some people can’t afford the cost of fertilizers.”
The inability of Sierra Leone to produce what its people consume has always been a contributing factor to the persistent food insecurity and poverty in the country, as most of the farmers do not have the ability and resources needed to involve in mechanized farming. Thus, the country heavily relies on imported food stuff, especially rice, to feed its people.
It is estimated that the government spends about USD150 million annually on rice importation alone. But currently, the government is trapped in an economic meltdown. The country is heavily dependent on food importation and the current depreciation of its currency against the US dollar has made food commodity prices to increase at astronomic al levels, beyond the reach of the ordinary people who are faced with this food insecurity.
The Ebola outbreak in the country early 2014 compounded the situation and completely reversed the gains made in food production. The 2014 harvest season was significantly impacted by Ebola containment measures, resulting in a reduction in farm labour and activities such as planting and weeding.
Primarily, the eastern part of the country where the Ebola outbreak started wreaking grave havoc on the residents is the region known for high agricultural productivity in Sierra Leone. The Ebola virus disease started spreading it claws in that region at the time of planting season in the country and continued spreading out to the time when staple foods like rice, maize and cassava were about to be harvested. At that time in Sierra Leone, most farmers were devastated by the disease as they were affected either directly or indirectly. Thus, they couldn’t move about their normal businesses freely.
The 2015 WFP survey report which was jointly undertaken by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food security; the Food and Agriculture Organization; and Action Contre la Faim (ACF), pointed out that food insecurity is not distributed evenly across the country as there were major differences between the districts.
“The highest concentration of food insecurity moderate and severe is found in the district of Kailahun, apparently where the Ebola started, Kenema, Bo Port Loko and Kono,” the report notes.
But the spokesman at the Ministry of Agriculture does not agree with the WFP report that “food security was chronically poor” more in Kailahun and Kenema. This, said Abubakarr Dramme, was because those two districts relied on cash crops which were doing well, as were the prices.
Daramy however said he could understand what WFP meant when they said over 40 percent of the country’s population was food insecure. This, he said, was because there was enough food in the country and it’s not like other countries where people would have money and they couldn’t see food to buy.
“When they say you don’t have access to food means you cannot reach that thing. It could also mean you have money but you cannot buy it like it happened in Ethiopia last year. But I can’t still comprehend this report by WFP,” he said.
Large scale land acquisition by foreign companies like Socfin in the south and Adax in the north of the country have subjected the farming population that lives on subsistence farming on upland and lowland to areas with poor soil fertility which has resulted in poor yields, making huge amount of the population to rely on markets for access to food.
World Bank and other institutions have also been seriously engaged in projects aimed at reducing poverty and food insecurity in the country. But they have repeatedly suggested that the only way out of poverty was for the government to massively invest in the agriculture sector.
Parminder Brar, World Bank country manager, told government officials early in June this year at the lunch of the second phase of the President’s Recovery Priorities in Magburoka, north of the country, that Sierra Leone had a perennial problem with “food insecurity” and that the inclusion of agriculture in the latest recovery plan therefore impressed the World Bank.
“Concentration on agriculture will bring everlasting change in the development of the country. Only 30 percent of the population lived in the city, the rest of the 70 percent are in the provinces living in poverty. But if agriculture is developed in the country that gap will be bridged,” Brar said.
He pointed at key areas that government needed to focus on in achieving the food security benchmark.
“The government should focus on providing certified seedling, feeder roads so that farmers can easily take their goods to the market. Agriculture extension quarters and imported fertilizers must also be provided,” the World Bank country manager said.
He noted that perennial problems like land acquisition would pose a stiff challenge to the development initiatives to agriculture sector and that female farmers who are mostly disadvantaged have advocated for a very long time for the country’s land tenure system to be reviewed.
© Politico 15/07/16
