By William Selmah, wselmah@gmail.com
Limited access to arable land and multiple security checkpoints, mainly in the leeward counties, are said to be severely hampering food supplies and production in the country, in the wake of the COVIS-19 State of Emergency.
The Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) quotes the Farmers Union Network of Liberia as saying too many checkpoints along the highway overly delay food commodities coming to markets. They also speak of lack of markets for their commodities.
“Farmers with paddy rice seeds do not have market access to sell their rice in order to earn income for livelihood”, the farmers are quoted as saying in the MOA’s latest COVID-19 Food Security Response Situation Report; the 4th in a series.
Lack of market access has not only led to perishable produce rotting, according to the farmers; it has also resulted into revenue loss to them and untold economic hardship.
One of the Farmers Union’s member organizations known by its acronym, GROW, wants government to open what it describes as “Preference Lane for Food and Goods” at various security checkpoints on highways.
GROW believes this could “accelerate travel time for vehicles transporting perishable food commodities; thereby resulting into further reduction in food costs, farm production and trade.”
The Farmers Union Network of Liberia is an umbrella organization of Liberian farmers founded since February 2008, and has membership 54,000. It also has seven federations and 114 cooperatives scattered across the country.
The MOA said in its COVID-19 Food Security Report that Agriculture Liberia Incorporated, a multipurpose Liberian-owned farm in northern Liberia, Nimba County, has cultivated almost 400 acres of rice and an additional 45 acres of vegetables.
According to the report, it has “highlighted the need for the expansion of cultivable areas to boost agricultural production of food crops in its Emergency Food Security Response. One facet of this expansion is the introduction of its urban and rural garden program code named, Triumph Gardens with the theme: “Feed Ourselves”.
According to the report, the campaign aims to reduce Liberia’s dependence on imported food products, rebrand agriculture in the eyes of our youth, reorient the agriculture sector into organic and sustainable models and ensure overall food and nutritional security.
Under its Emergency Food Security Plan, the Agriculture Ministry says it has finalized procurement plans to provide farming inputs and implements to farmers.
The ministry started giving out power tillers to farmers which international donors brought into country for farmers since March of this year, the report added.
It has also been working with the World Bank and the African Development Bank to ensure the speedy procurement of the inputs under its plan.
The COVID-19 Food Security Response Situation Report has meanwhile said that Agriculture Coordinators are continuing to monitor prices of the country’s staple, rice.
It further revealed that monitors have of recent, been reporting mixed price indexes of a 25kg imported rice in eight COVID 19 affected counties.