A potential 15,000 hectares of Boli land in the Maforki, Lokoma and Bekem chiefdoms in the Port Loko District could not be exploited for rice production because of lack of support from the government.
Through the tractorisation programme, the farmers were only able to cultivate 5,000 acres.
According to Issa Marah the Block Extension Supervisor in the Ministry of Agriculture the “ability to put more in farming is limited by cash and the conditions for hiring the tractors though free, yet some of the farmers don’t have money to buy fuel.”
He went on “if the government could come half way in subsidising the fuel, then the farmers will cultivate more during the year. The farmers were only able to cultivate 50 acres and the average returns they will get is 40 to 45 bushels per acre so you see that there is high potential, so if the government can lay emphasis here then we are hoping to meet the food security target.”
Lamin Bangura, one of the farmers in the 5,000 acres farm cultivated disclosed that six villages are working in the 50 acre farm.
Citing some of the problems faced by them the farmer said one of the problems is that they do not have money to buy fuel for the tractors. Because the land is a boli it can be properly cultivated by tractors but since they don’t have the money to buy the fuel they could not use the tractors and this therefore affects their production.
He added that in some areas the land needs fertiliser but “we don’t have the fertiliser, we also need the seed rice on time as the land over flows early but because we rely on government support we get these seed rice very late – government does not supply us early so it is difficult for us.”
Storage facility is also another problem faced by these farmers and this has resulted in large scale post harvest loss.
Slingo Osman Kamara District Director for Agriculture Port Loko said that rice production has been encouraging as Lokomasama is the rice bowl for production in this country. However he said after “harvesting you will see a lot of it going to Guinea through boats. This is not a surprise because Guinea has a better market otherwise they won’t take the risk to go to Guinea.”
Based on the distribution of seed rice and the returns they receive they judge the yield. Last year he said, they gave the farmers 10,354 bushels (ten thousand three hundred and fifty bushels) of seed rice.
“In addition to that other farmers have three quarters of what was given out roughly like 7,000 (seven thousand) So it was like 17,500,(seventeen thousand five hundred). So I take it on the average with this type of yield of 14 bushels per acre so the (overall yield is) about 245,000 bushels.”
On the issue of recovery the Director of Agriculture said that “the rice which was issued to the farmers were on loan and they recover it and establish seed banks – that is they keep their seed which they use to cultivate but we supervise the recovery” he explained that if the farmer is given one and a half interest rate that is if they are given one bushel they are expected to return one and half bushels. But they were able to recover about 1,000 bushels so they will have to pay 15% as interest. There is a problem because some farmers do not want to pay but the recovery was 66%.”
“But that was seen as a good record, taking into consideration the farmers were not used to paying. Another reason for this development is that we receive small quantity of seed rice from the ASREP project which is something like 352 bushels, we also purchase some quantity from Council’s devolved fund which is something like 152 bushels and about 2,000 bushels which we are currently distributing for Inland Valley Swamp cultivation. With all this I am expecting 245,000 and also expecting that one to double this year.” The reason for this improvement he went on is “because of the mechanical cultivation or the tractorisation programme and also because of the call of the president, more people are coming onto agriculture because there is profit in agriculture.” Questioned whether the 15% pay back for the seed rice is not too much and the reason for the farmers not to pay back the Director said, in 2006 there was no interest charge but the farmers refused to pay. He added that the interest levied is so that the farmers will have a lot of seed rice the other year and it will also help the farmers to establish seed banks, and help each other.
On the type of fertilisers used by the farmers Mr Slingo Osman Kamara disclosed that those on vegetables are aware of the local fertilisers but if one cultivates an acre of rice he will not have the local fertiliser that will really augment fertilising in that place.
“But however there is a local fertilizer called the Palm Kernel Cake (PKC) which Marican is trying to push in the field so that farmers can use. But if you have to apply it, then it has to ferment before the farmers can use it. If it does not decay it cannot give good product this is mainly used for mechanical cultivation.”
On government support of fertiliser to farmers the Director said the government does not supply farmers with fertilisers but this year they are of the view that the government is working towards that.
By Betty Milton and Ophaniel Gooding