By Crispina Lois Cummings
The Minister of Agriculture has said that “Sierra Leone has become the food basket for the sub-region” Dr. Sam Sesay made this statement while speaking to the Agriculture Committee at Parliament last week. He said the country loses some 7,000 bags of rice, 5,000 bags of “gari” and 2,000 gallons of palm oil on a monthly basis at the “Bamoi Luma”, adding that those goods are taken to other countries through the border areas.
The minister said he was suggesting a sharing of revenue between Sierra Leone and its neighbours as a way to minimizing smuggling activities.
The ministry was summoned to give a progress report of 2012 and to give clarifications on the role of agriculture in the economy and how farmers will extricate themselves from poverty. Dr. Sesay said there has been a big improvement in farming yield from one ton to 1,000 kilograms, poitiing out that for the first time the ministry has imported a huge sum of fertilizers for farmers.
A member of the committee, Kemokoh Conteh, MP for Constituency 94 asked the minister why seeds had not been distributed to farmers this year adding that the “Agricultural Business Centres” in his constituency was not functioning because the building was incomplete. The minister responded by saying that he would look into his concerns.
The minister said his ministry has introduced the small holders’ commercial program to farmers to enable them move from subsistence farming to commercial farming but pointed out that mining activities were making agriculture an expensive enterprise.
(C) Politico 11/06/13
