Department of Agricultural Economics
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://dspace.njala.edu.sl/handle/20.500.144402/170
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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, BashiruItem ASSESSING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PARIS CLIMATE AGREEMENT IN AFRICA(World Scientific, 2025-08-30) KAMANDA, JOHN KOWAThe implementation of the Paris Agreement in Africa focuses on governance, financial mechanisms, and sustainable energy transitions. The agreement offers Africa a framework for sustainable economic development, with projections indicating a potential reduction of climate change-induced economic losses by approximately 1.6% of GDP, equating to \$588.731 billion in financial relief. While Africa’s share of global CO 2 emissions rose from 3% in 2006 to 5% in 2016, current Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) show a more ambitious mitigation pathway, projecting only a 4.2% increase in emissions from 2022 levels by 2030, a significant improvement from the 65.2% increase projected under the first NDCs from 2015 levels. Unconditional NDC commitments account for 23% of projected emission reductions, with the remaining 77% dependent on international support. Despite notable successes from Rwanda’s quantified emission reductions (16% unconditional, 38% conditional by 2030), Morocco’s enhanced NDC targets (45.5% GHG reduction), Ethiopia’s ambitious sectoral mitigation (74.7% conditional reduction in waste emissions), and renewable energy adoption growth (24 GW added since 2013) in the continent, yet challenges persist, including inadequate international climate finance (adaptation-related finance below US\$5.5 billion annually) and climate finance allocation disparities with East Africa requiring 35% of continental climate finance, capacity gaps in governance, socioeconomic barriers such as the social and economic burden of phasing out coal. Successes include the mobilization of green finance, notably through green bonds and debt-for-climate swap models. Addressing research gaps and emerging trends, particularly in aligning diverse national priorities with international climate goals and ensuring equitable access to finance and technology, is crucial for accelerating progress and realizing Africa’s full climate action potential.Item Building Resilient Cities in the Face of Climate Change in Africa(Wiley, 2025-11-14) Kamanda, John KowaThis study, based on a systematic analysis of literature from 2014 to 2025, identifies the severe and escalating threats, including the projection that over 100 million Africans will live in vulnerable Low Elevation Coastal Zones by 2030 and the potential for heat exposure in cities like Lagos‐Ikorodu to increase from 0.25 to 23 billion person‐days annually under a high‐emission scenario. The analysis reveals that effective resilience hinges on an integrated financial and governance architecture, where the environmental impact of financial instruments is contingent on policy; for instance, business lending often increases emissions, whereas strategic green finance can be a potent mitigation tool. Crucially, the pursuit of a green economy must navigate the complex tug‐of‐war between economic ambitions such as export diversification and industrial growth and environmental quality, requiring policies that explicitly decouple prosperity from pollution. Promising strategies with documented efficacy include bioretention systems achieving up to a 92% reduction in stormwater runoff and the integration of nature‐based solutions. However, these are consistently undermined by pervasive challenges, including governance fragmentation, corruption, and a primary research focus on major cities that neglects secondary urban centres. The review concludes that bridging critical gaps particularly concerning the finance‐governance nexus, the evaluation of long‐term strategy effectiveness, and the integration of local knowledge with scientific data is essential for moving beyond incremental projects toward transformative, systemic urban resilience.