Sierra Leone: Covid-19 Impacted Activities of Women Farmers in Kambia District
By Ibrahim S. Bangura
Women represent 70 percent of the agricultural labor force of Sierra Leone and they play an important role in natural resource management and food production. But the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic has impacted their farming activities
The first COVID-19 case in Sierra Leone was reported on March 31, 2020, and as of 28 October, Sierra Leone had reported 2, 366 confirmed cases and 74 deaths. Restriction measures were put in place in March, including lock-downs, movement restrictions and market closures.
These restriction measures affected farmers, especially women farmers which led to income losses for many.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) food security and agricultural livelihoods COVID-19 Monitoring report which was released on May 2021, nearly 60 percent of surveyed farmers in Sierra Leone reported difficulties in accessing seeds as they were more expensive and more difficult to access than before.
The report shows that “the marketing of agricultural products was affected by the movement restrictions put in place to limit the spread of the pandemic, which included the closure of borders and weekly markets, in addition to the introduction of restrictions on inter-district travel and the use of public transportation.”
The report indicates that the main difficulties reported by crop growers include, #difficulty in accessing inputs, including seeds, finance and/or credit, tools and machinery and fertilizers or pesticidess.
There is also the lack of labour because wage labour is not fully allowed and available as usual, and nearly half reported that wage rates are higher than usual., and there also restricted access to land due to containment measures.
Women farmers in Bramaia and Tonko Limba chiefdoms in the northern district Kambia have said that the Coronavirus restrictions, rise in the price of fertilizer and seedlings due to COVID-19 have resulted in low yield thus affecting their livelihood as farmers.
Mariatu Kamara who usually grows rice, cassava, potato, and ginger in Bramaia chiefdom, said that a restriction on public gathering impacted natively on their faming activities.
She said that because of lack of machinery to undertake their farming activities efficiently, they used to mobilize themselves in groups comprising dozens of women and men to enhance productivity on their farms.
She said working in groups used to make their farm works go faster and easier. “But to avoid gathering, farmers are not working in groups, and that has really affected us here. Where 20 farmers used to work, only five were allowed,” she said.
She said that with improvement on farming activities, food security would be assured in the chiefdom and the country.
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She said that they rely on farming for their livelihood. “We have nothing to do apart from agriculture. We survive through farming, but we have been neglected by the government in this part of the country,” she said.
She said they do commercial and subsistence farming, and they usually grow different types of crops like cassava, rice, groundnut, potato, okra, vegetable, grain, and many others.
She said that before the outbreak of Coronavirus in Sierra Leone they used to access fertilizer at cheaper rate. “We hardly access fertilizer since the outbreak of Corona in the country. We used to buy a bag of fertilizer Le250,000 per bag (50kg), but now we buy it at Le 600,000 per bag. When fertilizer was available in the market in lower price, we usually have successful harvests.
“We have called on the government and the financial institutions to provide loans for us farmers in order to address food insecurity,” she said.
Ya Alimamy Turay, elder in Tonko Limba chiefdom, said that their main source of income in the chiefdom is agriculture, saying that they had not been having good productions over the years because they lacked farm tools, pesticide, fertilizers etc. She said that some of these items became scarce because of the outbreak of coronavirus which has affected the supply chain.
Abu Bakar Conteh is the representative of the Ministry of Agriculture and the World Food Program, and a member of Bramaia Agricultural Committee. He said that they have been working assiduously to see that women farmers have better harvest.
He said that recently, the government of Sierra Leone through the Ministry of Agriculture allocated one tractor for Tonko, Bramaia and Khonimaka chiefdoms to aid farming.
Note: This story was put together with support from Journalists for Human Rights (JHR) and the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) human rights fellowship.
