-Agriculture Min. Flomo lobbying for investment in 5-year sector plan
By Francis Pelenah, Jr. in Beijing (nahba2006@yahoo.ie)
Liberia’s Agriculture Minister, Dr. Mogana Flomo wants the government of the People’s Republic of China to consider critical investments in the country’s agriculture sector.
Minister Flomo believes investment in food crops mainly the production of the country’s staple, rice will help solve long years of food insecurity in Liberia.
Despite having rich soil, Liberia’s agriculture sector has suffered low level of production as a result of the civil war and lack of investment.
Addressing the China-Africa Agriculture Policy Dialogue in Changsha, Hunan Provence Thursday evening, Minister Flomo said the lack of investment in agriculture has put Liberia’s Economy in a very bad state and made the country to heavily rely on the importation of food.
According to him, the high level of food import takes away huge amount of foreign exchange from the local economy, resulting to constant increase in the general price level.
Flomo disclosed that the Ministry of Agriculture is working with partners such as the World Food Program and the Food and Agriculture Organization to implement programs that tend to ease hunger in the country.
However the Liberian Agriculture Minister was quick to point out that only sustainable investments in the sector can bring about the much craved self-sufficiency in food production.
Quoting a survey conducted by the FAO in 2018, Minister Flomo said about 16 percent of households in Liberia is food insecure while 42 percent is moderately food insecure.
“This means if that is not addressed properly, we will have a significant portion of our population slipping into food insecurity” Minister Flomo told the gathering.
About 70 percent of the country’s farmers he said are involved with subsistence farming but they are unable to grow food to adequately feed themselves.
He said for years Liberia has not experienced mechanized farming that will yield the needed produce both for local consumption and exports.
Flomo added “there are other factors responsible for this. We can consider the lack of access to finance is one key issue. Another is that agriculture research in Liberia is very poor, extension services are very poor and we don’t have the kind of infrastructure in place to be able to really produce. In addition to that, the country has never really experienced an age where we have mechanized farming going. We only depend on cutlasses to farm and this method of farming cannot take us to the level where we can adequately feed ourselves”.
Owing to those factors, he said the Ministry of Agriculture has developed a five year Liberia Agriculture Sector Investment Plan that considers addressing all the challenges facing the agriculture in the country.
Minister Flomo noted that Liberia wants to learn and benefit from the Chinese example, about how a country of 1.4 billion people can grow more food and be self- sufficient. The Agriculture Policy Dialogue is part of ongoing China-Africa Economic and Trade Expo taking place in Changsha, Hunan Provence, the birth place of the founding father of the People’s Republic of China, Chairman Mao Zedong