The Chairlady of the Koinadugu Women Vegetable Farmers Cooperative Haja Sundu Marrah has said that the lack of storage facility has negatively affected vegetable growers in the district because most of their goods perish on the roads before reaching the markets.
“We are dealing in perishable goods and sometimes we find it very difficult to realize something after the season’s harvest, despite cultivating over two hundred acres of both in valley swamp and vegetable gardening across Koinadugu district” she said.
Haja Marrah said, the deplorable road network within Kabala and its surroundings has also hampered marketing because Freetown based traders normally makes more profit than them the actual producers.
She also said that there are tractors in Kabala but vegetables gardeners do not need them all what they need is power tillers for the swamps and sadly not a single one is available for vegetable gardeners registered with the cooperative, she explained.
Haja Sundu said NaCSA, GPC programme has been very helpful of late to the women by supporting the cooperative to undertake a pilot project on the planting and harvesting of Irish Potato on 15 acres of land within Kabala town and its surroundings.
She said, cooperative members are scattered all over Kabala and they are working at respective swamps on small scale farming and vegetable gardening. The number of cooperative members has risen to 750 “but the Government has just refused to support us,” she said.
In 2006 she said, the then SLPP Government distributed over 300 bushels of rice for cultivation on the condition that we pay back to the seed bank 3 bushels for every 2 bushels to enable other groups or cooperatives to benefit from the scheme.
She said it is the same rice that the cooperative is still circulating among members but the lack of fertilizers is another major constraint for vegetable farmers as the Chinese produced fertilizer is costing (Le 180,000.00) one hundred and eighty thousand Leones for a 50 kg bag.
“Our vegetables can’t grow without fertilizers even some of the swamps need it because we recycle the soil for both rice and vegetables on the basis of every season” she said
It is costing the cooperative millions to purchase fertilizers and seeds because we some time travel as far as Mali and other countries to buy seeds and fertilizers alone,” she said.
In Koinadugu she said there is no preservation facilities as most of the vegetables perish on the roads and on the farms, after every harvest farmers only realize a meager 30% from their annual yields which is discouraging and frustrating,.
She added that there are villages in Kabala that are not motorable and traders find it extremely difficult to access the vegetables for consumers in the market, she noted.
Haja Sundu said the Italian Fund has also supported the cooperative with NERICA seedlings of 4 kg of rice inputs called JX9, there are also other local varieties like Rock 3 and 14 and China and Liberia varieties.
She said her vegetables cooperative grows cabbage, carrot, sweet pepper, hot pepper, okra, tomato and carrot but most of it perish on the farms and in vehicles due to the lack of preservation and deplorable road networks.
“We normally use chicken manure instead of imported fertilizers, as we nurse for 21 days, before transplanting and we also pay the men for labour while cooperative members are involved in weeding and harvesting, she said.
On the question of access to loan in the banks and other grants from development partners she said her cooperative has not received any loan from Government or NGO’s but have opened a bank account for the cooperative despite the numerous challenges.
Concluding the Chairlady of the Koinadugu Cooperative called on the Ministry of Agriculture to also support vegetable growers with storage facility because one cannot eat rice alone but vegetables can also boost agriculture with rapid economic growth.
Another Vegetable grower Mbalu Mansaray who lives at mile one in Kabala Town expressed serious concern over the lack of storage facilities and the deplorable road networks and called for assistance.
By Saidu Bah