Browsing by Author "Blango, Mohamed M."

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Deconstructing the Barriers to Food Self-Sufficiency in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone
(Scientific Research Publishing, 2026) Blango, Mohamed M.
Sierra Leone presents a profound paradox: a nation endowed with abundant agricultural resources, seven major rivers, extensive inland valley swamplands, and a climate ideally suited for rice cultivation, yet persistently dependent on food imports and burdened by alarming rates of food insecurity affecting over 80% of its population. This article undertakes a comprehensive deconstruction of the barriers to food self-sufficiency in post-conflict Sierra Leone, examining the complex interplay of historical legacies, institutional failures, gendered inequalities, and contemporary policy challenges that perpetuate this paradox. Drawing on a political economy framework and extensive analysis of agricultural policy since the end of the civil war in 2002, the study identifies six interconnected constraint clusters. There is the protracted legacy of conflict on agricultural systems and seed diversity; then land tenure dualism and the precarity of smallholder access; the responsibility-authority gap in gendered agricultural labour; the infrastructure deficit in processing, storage, and market connectivity; the tension between large-scale investment models and smallholder-centered approaches; and the political economy of rice import dependency. The analysis reveals that Sierra Leone currently produces some 65% of its domestic rice requirements while spending an estimated \$200 million annually on rice imports. The ambitious Feed Salone initiative seeks to remedy the situation through a \$620 million investment plan. However, this article argues that without addressing the underlying institutional and distributional challenges, the current strategy risks replicating the failures of previous agricultural development programmes by favoring agribusiness interests over the five million smallholder farmers in the country. The study concludes with recommendations for a sequential approach that prioritizes formalizing and strengthening existing informal agricultural practices, gradually expanding state recognition and resource allocation as smallholder collective bargaining power increases, and embedding food self-sufficiency within the broader framework of rural transformation and social justice.
Effect of soil and water management practices on crop productivity in tropical inland valley swamps
(Elsevier BV, 2019-06-05) Blango, Mohamed M.
Modeling the Effect of Climate Change on Water Stored above a Micro-Dam in an Inland Valley Swamp in Sierra Leone, Using SWAT
(IntechOpen, 2022-06-08) Blango, Mohamed M.
Many societies have experienced water scarcity resulting from population growth, increased urbanization and industrialization, increased irrigation associated with advances in agriculture productivity, desertification, global warming, or poor water quality. Climate change, and soil heterogeneity has a direct impact on the discharges of many rivers in and around the world. Various hydrological models have been used to characterize the impact of climate and soil properties on hydrology and water resources. The SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) water balance model, one such model, has been used at a variety of scales. In this instance it was used to model the impact of climate change on water storage in a reservoir at the downstream end of a small (75 ha) watershed. The watershed is the major component of an inland valley swamp, with a valley bottom that receives runoff from the watershed. The SWAT model was calibrated using storage data from 2014/15 and validated with data from 2015/16. Using future ensemble values derived from GCMs, the model predicted a reduction in the storage volume at the beginning of December of every dry season, with the 100-year storage volume down from 10,000 to 6900 cubic meters.
Rainwater harvesting for supplemental irrigation under tropical inland valley swamp conditions*
(Wiley, 2020-07-14) Blango, Mohamed M.
Agricultural water management, if well implemented, could increase water supply and food security across the developing world. Simple earth dams or reservoirs are sufficient in this case for gravity‐driven irrigation to support agricultural production throughout the year. This is critical for regions with little energy and limited farm irrigation, but abundant precipitation. In Sierra Leone, energy especially as electricity is hardly available and farming is over 80% rainfed. This critical shortfall has limited crop cultivation to almost entirely the wet season in the country. Here, we developed an earthen micro‐dam and analysed its potential for rainwater harvesting and supplemental irrigation in the dry season in an inland valley swamp at Njala University. For the 2014–2017 dry season cropping period, average daily evaporation, seepage and irrigation from the 4.2 × 104 m3 dam were respectively 2.84, 0.51 and 7.76 mm. Thus, with 124 mm (79.5 m3) dam water irrigation and 409 mm precipitation in the dry season, grain yield increased by 67% (1430 kg ha¯¹) over that (2130 kg ha¯¹). This implies that the additional rice harvest in the dry season in excess of the rice harvest in the wet season was 67%. In other words, the harvest in the dry season was 3560 kg ha¯¹. The higher harvest in the dry season was attributed to the more favourable crop growth conditions (including solar radiation and supplemental irrigation) in the dry season than in the wet season. The additional harvest in the dry season could be significant in closing food security gaps, especially in tropical Africa where rainfall is plenty and energy availability limited.
The Performance of a Micro-Dam Rainwater Harvesting System in an Inland-Valley Swamp in Sierra Leone
(Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 2025-12-31) Blango, Mohamed M.
Major opportunities to improve food security and household incomes are being missed in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) because of inadequate management of agricultural water, especially in rain-fed systems. Moreover, there are challenges of coping with water scarcity and stress due to climatic variability. Land degradation resulting from soil erosion by wind and water, and poor management of soil fertility, also contributes to low rainwater use efficiency. Sierra Leone receives a lot of rain, with an annual average of 2526 mm. During the wet season, typically between April and November, there is an excess of water; more than the requirement for crop production. However, the situation changes drastically in the dry season (December to March) when the total rainfall is most times 6-8% of the annual rainfall. Rainwater is an important input factor for healthy and productive ecosystems. Rainwater harvesting (RWH) in a watershed context has a role and an impact on several aspects of ecosystems and human well-being. In Sierra Leone, irrigation plays a minor role as almost all farming activities are rainfed. This study takes an integrated approach towards agricultural water management with specific objectives designed to optimise the availability and utilization of water and move the focus from local field level to basin or watershed scale. This research was conducted in an Inland Valley Swamp at Njala University, located in the Southern region of Sierra Leone. A micro-dam with a reservoir of capacity, 26,500 m3 was evaluated to know the extent to which it can improve cropping intensity and extend the cropping season. Losses by seepage was high, amounting to 34% and 27% of stored water during 2014/15 and 2015/16 dry season respectively. The reduction in seepage could be attributed to the addition of a layer of soil with high clay content on the upstream of the dam. Despite the seepage, there was sufficient water to support a second crop with supplementary irrigation. Yields from the dry season crop were generally higher than those of the rainy season. This throws more light on the potential for higher yields not just in the lowlands as against the uplands, but also getting better yields in the dry season as compared to the wet season. To further improve the performance of the RWH system, a novel approach was undertaken to improve rice yields and save water during irrigation, with the addition of Biochar. In doing so, the effect of biochar on water productivity under various management practices was investigated. Many studies have demonstrated that using biochar as a soil amendment can improve the soil carbon content and water retention. The water management practices included: the Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD) method, Aerobic Rice System (ARS) and the Continuous Flooding (CF) practice. In a period of three years (2014-2017), rice was cultivated twice a year, wet and dry season. The highest measured wet and dry season yields, 3.2 t ha-1 and 4.7 t ha-1, occurred during the 2015/2016 cropping season. In general, dry season yields were higher than wet season yields, plots with biochar had higher yields than plots without biochar, and CF plots had higher yields than ARS plots, which in turn had higher yields than AWD plots. The water management practices had significant effect on water productivity, with the yields under the ARS being significantly higher during the dry season of 2015/16 (p = 0.001) and 2016/17 (p= 0.003) than the CF and AWD. As the small reservoir (or pond) is a key component of the watershed and is affected by various hydrologic variables, it is critical to understand the impacts of impending climate change on its functionality. Typically, this is done using physically-based hydrologic models coupled with future climate data from General Circulation Models (GCMs). Simulated volume of water in the pond from the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was calibrated with observed data for the same period. (2014/15 dry season). A Nash Sutcliffe Efficiency (NSE) value of 0.82 was calculated during the validation of the model. The model also predicted a reduction in the volume of stored water by the end of the century (2081-2100 as compared to a baseline period (1961-2000).