By Mathew Kanu
Forty-five-year-old farmer and former councillor of the Bombali district council, Juliana Conteh, says she planted ten bushels of groundnuts and hopes to harvest more than ten bags, which she says is her only source of livelihood.
“From groundnut farming I have secured a political and teaching career and it still contributes to solving the problems of my four children and other family members” she says, adding that “Groundnut farming is a women’s affair in Binkolo”.
Conteh says “the gods have blessed us this year and production is very encouraging”. She however complains that they are faced with challenges including “the under-pricing of the produce and the high level of subsistent farming” which she says is also widely practiced. She calls on government to commercialise groundnut farming “to improve the production”.
A teacher and farmer, Desmond Bondi, told Politico that groundnut farming was fast becoming very important for the people of Binkolo both from the traditional and economic points of view.
He said he met his people growing groundnuts and was therefore aware about the economic importance of the crop.
“My family uses groundnut to prepare meals, sells it to pay school fees for the children and uses groundnut also to do a lot of things that money can buy,” he said.
Bondi said that if people were good farmers they could actually prosper to the extent of building their own houses. He said that although people only grow groundnut on a subsistent basis, commercial farming was possible but not without some challenges among them poverty and unproductive loans.
“We also don’t have enough labour to do large scale farming” he went on, urging government to “maintain a balance between the mining sector and agriculture so that with the phasing-out of mining someday the people will still survive”. He warned that if that was not done there might be “no future for agriculture in the country”.
Bombali district agriculture officer, Aiah Joseph Thorlie, said that groundnut was a major diversified food that the ministry relied on and was a major agricultural produce on the value chain.
“The seedlings supplied to farmers, who are mostly women, can yield much economic benefit for the nation” he said, adding “Binkolo is recorded as the highest producer of groundnut that has created self-employment job opportunities for the young and old”.
Thorlie admitted to challenges including seed distribution but was quick to say that that was gradually being settled.
“I am sure farmers will always have their seedlings supplied to them by the ministry or nongovernmental organisations” he said, adding that “a good number of farmers sell groundnut raw instead of processing it.” he said they were targeting the provision of solar driers to be able to process them.
(C) Politico 05/09/13
