Impact of food crisis

• Population below Poverty Line already above 70% before crises of four (4) Fs: Food, fuel, fertiliser and financial. Yesterday another F added: Frustration! Thus five (5) Fs now!
• 50% price increase for Rice, country's staple
• About 50,000 or almost 9% population submerged into the poverty line as a result

Interventions

National Agric Response Programme (NARP)

• Social Protection Net (WFP): feeding programme, purchasing power enhancing activities, reduction of tariffs on food imports.
• Boosting Domestic Production by Ministry of Agriculture.
  • Integrated approach: (a) Crops + Livestock + post-harvest (agro-processing facilities and (b) support provided along Agric Value Chain: from input supply to marketing
  • Using farmer-based Organisations (FBOs): 15 FBOs per District for all fourteen Districts of Sierra Leone
  • Tractorization Scheme leading to cultivation of over 46,000 Acres : 2 to 3 times more than Ministry has ever done in history
  • Revolving Improved Seed Supply Programme of over 1,800 MT
  • Addressing serious structural problems of Agric: feeder roads to connect Supply with Demand of Producers with Markets

Lessons Learnt

• Dialogue involving sector stakeholders develops partner confidence and therefore entrusting of donor resources to mutually agreed one partner (pooling donor resources); FAO in Sierra Leone
• May donors participated and contributed to pooled resources ("basket funding system"): IFAD, ADB, EU, Irish, FAO, IDB, etc
• All donors agree to post-transaction compliance checks to donor procedures or process. This is a very serious breakthrough in history of donor relaxation of conditions!!

Current actions to address food crisis

• Agriculture declared First Priority of Government since October 2008
• Budgetary Allocation to Agriculture significantly increased from less than 2% over a decade to about 7.5% in 2009: close to requirement of Maputo Declaration 2003 of 10%
• Presidential Task Force on Agriculture (PTFAg) established bringing all stakeholders to the dialogue table: relevant MDAs, key donors, the Private Sector including farmers and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs)
• The President chairs the Task Force to ensure ALL stakeholders cooperate.
• An Agricultural Policy and Incentive for Private Sector Investment in Agricultural has been passed by Government which, among others:
  • Provides for 5-year import duty waiver on agric inputs for investors
  • 5-year tax holiday for investors
  • Government can serve as intermediary by leasing land from the owners and sub-leasing to the investor in order to relieve the ladder of the incumbrances of multiplicity of land ownership in Sierra Leone
  • Land for bio-energy to target marginal lands and not compete with land for food production!

Sector Vision, Objectives and Vogue

• Vision: make Agriculture the ‘engine' for socioeconomic growth and development through commercialization
• Objectives:
  • Increasing agric productivity (intensification)
  • Promoting diversified commercial agriculture through the Private Sector, including farmers and their farmer-based organisations (FBOs)
  • Improving research and extension delivery services
  • Promoting efficient and effective resource management
  • Mainstreaming cross-cutting issues: gender, youth, farmer health (HIV/AIDS), malaria, etc) and environmental sustainability
• Vogue: since the new Government came to power in 2007, it has brought to focus:
  • Commercialisation of agriculture
  • Private Sector promotion
  • Use of Farmer-based organisations as farmers support delivery strategy
  • Integrated approach to agriculture along the agric value chain of input supply, production, value addition and marketing, including exportation
  • Farmer subsidization especially for productivity increasing inputs
  • Irrigation given country's natural endowment
  • Rice self –sufficiency: rice being the staple and studies have shown that we have the comparative advantage to compete in the international market for rice.
  • Mechanization to address the serious shortage of farm labour.