Department of Agricultural Economics
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Item Linkages among Key Actors in the Climate Change and Food Security Innovation System in Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Liberia(African Journals OnLine, 2013-01-17) Agwu, AEThe study used the innovation system approach to ascertain the intensity and trends of linkages among key actors in the climate change and food security innovation system in Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Data were collected through the use of semi structured interview schedule, key informant interviews and focus group discussions (FGDs) and analyzed using percentages, mean scores and trend analysis. Only 1.8% of the farmers from Nigeria, 2.5% from Sierra Leone and 0.7% from Liberia possessed special training on climate change adaptation and food security issues. The presence of local collaboration among actors was higher in Nigeria than in Sierra Leone and Liberia. There was nonexistence of overseas linkages with majority (89.0% for Nigeria; 98.0 for Sierra Leone and 96.8% for Liberia) of the farmers across the three countries. The intensity of linkages / collaborations existing among actors in the enterprise domain, in the three countries, outweighs that with other domains, with higher collaborations existing among the small-scale farmers and famers’ associations. However, there was a perceived increase in the trend of linkage between farmers and R & D institutions in Nigeria between 2007 and 2009, with a linkage index of more than 2. There was also an increasing higher linkage index (of more than 2) between farmers and technology delivery institutions in Nigeria than in Sierra Leone and Liberia, but a low linkage index of less than 2 between farmers and policy making bodies for all the countries. Poor generation of innovations over the past ten years and poor domestic support for climate change adaptation and food security in the West African sub-region were identified. The study points to the need to intensify the collaboration efforts, between local and foreign partners, as this will bring about the generation of better and improved innovations on food security and adaptive measures.Item Socio-Cultural Factors of Food Insecurity in Sierra Leone(IISTE, 2019-10-01) Johnny, MichaelFood crop production in Sierra Leone is dominated by rice. It is cultivated by almost all small-scale farmers and consumed in all Sierra Leonean households irrespective of income levels. This underscores the importance attached to rice as a major staple crop. Sierra Leone is a rice deficit nation. Available statistics indicate that between 1970 and 2000, the country was self-sufficient in rice production only in 1975. Between 1979 and 2000, annual domestic paddy production fell from 504,000 to 200,000 Mt. During the same period, the volume of imported rice to fill domestic production shortfalls increased from 30% to 60% of total rice consumption. The 1991-2002 civil war and associated insecurity throughout the rural areas resulted in a dramatic fall in production throughout the 1990s. Since the cessation of armed hostilities in 2002, the recovery of rice production in Sierra Leone has been impressive although self-sufficiency remains elusive. A peculiar feature of food availability in Sierra Leone (especially in rural communities) is its seasonality. Typically, there is widespread food scarcity in farming communities between the months of July and September each year. This seasonal food shortage is commonly referred to as the “hunger season." A plethora of explanations exist for the occurrence of the hunger season. The most frequently cited include insufficient supplies in store due to poor harvest; a lack of skills in storage; and crop loss due to inefficient processing/preservation techniques. This paper argues that apart from the production related explanations (such as insufficient supplies in store due to poor harvest; a lack of skills in storage; and crop loss due to inefficient processing/preservation techniques), several socio-cultural factors need to be considered in accounting for food insecurity in Sierra Leone. **Keywords:** Socio-cultural, food insecurity, food production, Sierra Leone DOI : 10.7176/DCS/9-10-07 Publication date :October 31 st 2019Item Do Land Ownership and Agro-Ecological Location of Farmland Influence Adoption of Improved Rice Varieties? Evidence from Sierra Leone(Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 2019-12-01) Mansaray, BashiruThis study investigates the impact of farmland ownership and agro-ecological location on the adoption of the two most important sources of improved rice varieties (NERICA and ROK) in the context of Sierra Leone. In terms of farmland ownership, the results showed that farmers who cultivated their own land had a higher tendency of remaining as non-adopters of improved varieties, but those who rented farmland or were engaged in sharecropping had higher adoption rates of improved rice varieties. Also, the location of farmland (uplands or inland valley swamps) determined the rates of adoption of improved varieties differently. For instance, upland regions showed faster adoption of ROK varieties, but inland valley areas showed faster adoption of NERICA varieties. We also examined the survival rates of local rice varieties. The adoption of improved varieties was only occurring at a very low rate, and the farmers’ adoption of ROK varieties was swifter than for NERICA varieties. This study recommends that policies advocating the adoption of improved rice varieties in Sierra Leone must take into consideration the patterns of farmland ownership and location.Item Market and Welfare Effects of Food Security Policies on Smallholder Rice Farmers and Consumers in Sierra Leone(Canadian Center of Science and Education, 2020-05-15) Sheriff, Mohamed AjubaThis research examines the market and welfare effects of three food security policy options in Sierra Leone in response to the high rate of rice importation and rising rice prices over the last decade. These policies aimed at curbing the rate of rice importation, promoting local rice production, and enhancing welfare of smallholder rice farmers in rural communities. The policies investigated included: 1) reinstating tariffs on rice imports, 2) promoting value-chain strengthening interventions that increase production of locally produced rice and 3) instituting a quota (or some quantity restriction) on rice imports. A log-linear comparative static displacement model was used to carry out the analysis. For the first policy, 20%, 30% and 40% shocks were introduced in the equilibrium system to represent decreases in the quantity of rice imported as a result of reinstating tariffs on imported rice. Results revealed that welfare of consumers and or smallholder farmers of locally produced rice was enhanced by 9.4% at a 10% tariff increase and 17.8% at a 20% tariff increase. Consumers of imported rice had their welfare enhanced by 3.5% at a 10% tariff increase while welfare was dis-enhanced by 5.4% at a 20% tariff increase. With a 10% increase in the supply of locally produced rice, there was a corresponding welfare enhancement on smallholder rice farmers and consumers by 14.43% and by 27% for a 20% increase in supply. Marginal increases were recorded for consumers of imported rice. The results show that the optimal policy in the current post-Ebola national recovery environment is one that increases local rice production through cultivation intensification and rice value chain efficiency.Item Farmers’ preferences for attributes of rice varieties in Sierra Leone(Springer Science+Business Media, 2020-05-02) Jin, ShaoshengItem Do the determinants of food security differ in improved rice variety adoption? Evidence from Sierra Leone(De Gruyter Open, 2020) Mansaray, BashiruThe Sierra Leonean government has implemented the improved rice varieties directed at enhancing more rice production to reduce food insecurity. This paper evaluates the food security effect of improved rice variety adoption using cross-sectional data collected in 2017 from a randomly selected sample of 624 rice farmers in Sierra Leone. The analysis uses the endogenous switching regression and propensity score matching (PSM) approach. The results revealed that the adoption of improved rice varieties has a significant positive effect on food security. That confirms the crucial role of improved rice variety adoption in increasing food production and food security. Therefore, the study recommended the intensification of policies that promote improved rice variety adoption, if more food production and food security are to be realized. Further, the government should continue the lead in rice variety promotion and dissemination and in enhancing an enabling environment for the effective adoption of farmers. Given the preponderant evidence of the different factors of food security, appropriate policies that seek to promote formal education, more income generation for farmers, and easy and credible access to farmland for landless farmers would enhance food security.Item The Effects of Microcredit on Agricultural Production among Small-Scale Farmers in Kori Chiefdom, Moyamba District, Southern Province, Sierra Leone(2022) Bah, Abdul Salami\- Lack of capital has been identified as one of the constraints faced by small-scale farmers. The aim of the research was to assess the impact of credit on agricultural production with specific objectives to determine its effect on farm size, labour employment and quantity of inputs as well as output among small-scale farmers in Kori Chiefdom Moyamba District and to determine any significant difference, if any between borrowers and nonborrowers. Structured questionnaires were administered to respondents. Seven respondents were targeted from each of the fifteen (15) villages, which give a sample size of one hundred and five (105) respondents from the chiefdom. The sample consisted of age (youth and elderly), sex (male and female) and rice farmers using the stratified random sampling technique, and the data obtained were summarized into tables, pie and bar charts with percentages and frequency. Secondary data were obtained from both published and unpublished literatures. Results showed a significant difference between borrowers and non-borrowers in farm size, farm output, income status and quantity of all inputs used (except family labour, fertilizer, hoes/cutlasses and animal traction). According to the research, farmers in rural areas had difficult access to agricultural credit and loans. In the research area, only 38 out of 105 farmers (36%) received microcredit for farming, compared to the majority (64%) who did not. Based on the analysis' results, borrowers had farms that were significantly larger than those of non-borrowers; the majority of them (86.6%) had between 6 and 10 acres, while just 13.40% had between 1 and 5 acres. Neither borrowers nor non-borrowers had farms with a size between 11 and 16 acres and above (0%), while the majority of non-borrowers (91.40%) had farms with a size between 1 and 5 acres, 5.60% had farms with a size between 6 and 10. This suggests that the rise in farm size that borrowers experience is more significant when financing to small-scale farmers. The study shows therefore that, access to microcredit over a long period of time impacts positively on agricultural production. Government and the organized private sector should provide credit regularly and timely to farmers.Item The Effects of Bushfires on Farming Industry Among Small-Scale Farmers in Kori Chiefdom, Moyamba District, Sierra Leone(Science Publishing Group, 2023-12-14) Musa, Mohamed FrancisThis study analyzed the effect of bush burning on the smallholder farming industry in Kori Chiefdom. The researchers used a structured questionnaire to obtain primary data from three hundred and eighty-four (384) farmers who were selected through a combination of multi-stage and simple random techniques. Cochran's (1977) scientific formula was adopted in selecting the sample size for this research. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data. The result indicates that, 56% of the respondents are male, and 59% of the farmers ages fell between 31 and 40 years. Farmers are highly affected by bush burning in 2019 and 2020, with 27.1% and 21%, respectively. Some of the crops the fire destroyed were cassava, groundnuts, pineapples, pepper, and parboiled rice. Land clearing (21.4%) was identified as the major root cause of fire outbreaks, and (34.8%) of the respondents admitted to the practice of bush burning for 1–10 years. The majority of the farmers claimed to have lost household assets valued at NLe1,000 and below, (53.2%) of the respondents accepted the fact that burning creates devastation for agricultural products. The study further showed that 60.9% of the respondents indicated that a lack of fire equipment that can help reduce the spread of fire was one of the main constraints facing their communities in controlling a wide fire outbreak. The study recommended that the town chief in those communities should enforce legislation, local laws should be made against uncontrolled bush burning. The government and international non-governmental organizations should help by providing bushfire equipment and training at the community level, which will help prevent the spread of bushfires if they occur.Item PREDICTING RICE SELF-SUFFICIENCY IN SIERRA LEONE USING ARIMA MODEL(Muhammad Nawaz Shareef University of Agriculture, 2024-06-30) Sannoh, Andrew BorbohRice is the staple food in Sierra Leone, with the annual consumption increasing faster than the yearly production. As a result, the county is yet to be self-sufficient in rice production, resulting in a very high annual import bill. This paper aims to predict Sierra Leone's self-sufficiency in rice until 2030. The time series modeling approach (Box Jenkins' ARIMA model) was used to forecast rice production, consumption, and finally, rice self-sufficiency in Sierra Leone. The predicted results of the study showed that the self-sufficiency rate of rice will fluctuate between 63% and 65% in the forecasted period of 2021 and 2024 and will then remain stable (constant) at 63% until 2030. Therefore, as shown from the study results, Sierra Leone will continue to import about 37% of rice annually at the current production scenario until 2030. This study's findings showcased that although the country has formulated some viable policies to boost rice production, more effort is needed to ensure self-sufficiency. However, any policy to increase rice production should strive to improve small-scale rice producers in line with their agronomic practices.Item Farmer-Social Interaction and the Adoption of Improved Rice Varieties: Empirical Evidence from Sierra Leone(RELX Group (Netherlands), 2025) Mansaray, Bashiru