Hon Amadu Kanu (APC) of Constituency 086, Moyamba district has said that because of the fall in price of our main economic commodity, iron ore and the abrupt intrusion of the Ebola epidemic, the country must focus on farming for economic sustainability.
“We need to put in place mechanisms to cater for unforeseen circumstances by establishing local industries as we should just not depend on mining,” he said whilst making his submission during the budget debate last week.
He added that there is need to revisit the country’s mining agreements and that apart from adding corporate social responsibilities they should now task prospective exploration license holders to having mining exploration farms. Road contractors can also make investments in farming within their area of operation.
Meanwhile, Hon. Aaron Aruna Koroma (APC) of Constituency 062, Tonkolili district said that members of the opposition always blame the government that nothing is being done in the agricultural sector.
“I just returned from Tormabum where there is over 20,000 cultivated hectares of rice and 5,000 cultivated rice fields in Magbass. This is to show you the growth this government has made in the agricultural sector as we inherited 0.7 yield per acre of which we have been able to increase that yield to 3.5 for the very first time.”
Hon. Frederick S. Sorie, Constituency 023, Kono, said that for the SLPP members of Parliament to reference that the army had rice sufficiency during their governance is not true.
The military stopped experiencing that in 1978 and he says was the year that an APC President Siaka Stevens was in office at the time. The farming program for the military he said was stopped during the NPRC regime and the Armed Forces Agricultural Units was re-established by Major Rtd Paolo Conteh, “and I don’t think that he was a minister in an SLPP government? He retorted.
In the budget speech, agriculture was targeted as one of sectors for special focus within the diversification strategy because of its inherent potential, the realization, of which, he says will contribute to food security and export, displace food imports thereby saving foreign exchange, enhance farmers agricultural income, create job opportunities; and generate industrial spill offs through agro-processing.
Minister Momodu Kargbo highlighted that in reducing our dependence on imported rice, emphasis will continue to be placed on increasing domestic rice production to attain self-sufficiency as well as reduce the high import bill.
Trade statistics indicate that, up to $108 million USD has been utilized for the importation of rice for the first six months of 2017. “This magnitude of foreign exchange resources utilized to import rice that can be produced locally is among the main factors that make it difficult to stabilize the Leone.”
As a result of this the primary and urgent objective in the agriculture sector he said is to achieve self-sufficiency in rice production – the staple food of the country in the shortest possible time.
“To this end, in addition to on going efforts such as Smallholder Commercialization and Agribusiness Development project (SCADEP) funded by the World Bank, new initiatives are on the offer. MoFED has approached the Indian Exim Bank for a loan of $30 million USD to undertake rice production in Tormabum.”
Additionally, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation through the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) will fund the Agricultural Intensification and Diversification project, which will largely be devoted to rice production. In addition, Government will request the World Bank to allocate $50 million USD from our IDA-18 allocation to support rice production in the country.
ZJ/6/11/17
By Zainab Joaque
Tuesday November 07, 2017.