Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Agriculture Forestry and Food Security has conducted an assessment of private sector investment in rice production nationwide with a view to boosting the government’s Agenda for Change’s food sufficiency and commercialized farming drives.
The assessment was conducted last week in two regions of Sierra Leone and revealed the level of progress by the government to increase rice production in the country and consequently alleviate acrid poverty among Sierra Leoneans.
Most farms visited during the assessment tour, though privately owned, commended government and community efforts towards alleviating hunger and starvation aggravated in the past by insufficient production of rice and other edible crops since the end of the eleven-year civil war.
At Mesimera village north of the country, about 220 acres of land has been leased for 20 years by Genesis Farms a private sector institution intent on cultivating the Nerica rice variety in a bid to respond to the demand of the seed.
The director of the multi-million dollar mechanized Nerica rice project, Peter Pijpers said the land on which he has chosen to implement his three-year rice project has fertilized enough to accept crop cultivation for a couple of years.
He spoke of using imported fertilizers to ensure abundance in productivity.
Pijpers said three or four months after planting nerica rice can be harvested, making it natural for the Sierra Leone government to government take advantage of it its quest to actualize food sufficiency for its people.
Pijpers, a Dutch national noted that in 2008, the agriculture ministry had offered duty-free concessions and other related supports geared towards strengthening Nerica rice production in Sierra Leone.
He said at the harvest season, four tons of Nerica rice per acre is expected to be available in the markets and the agric ministry for local consumption and probably for export.
Mr. Saffa M. Kallon, the Project Coordinator of the Nerica Rice Dissemination of the Ministry of Agriculture, said “the government’s quest to improve Nerica production would enable farmers develop their farming activities by using crops that quickly respond to the need for food either for the purposes of commercialized or subsistence farming.
Source African Press Agency
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