By Edward Vamboi
Abu Bakar Karim, Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, has on the 29th June 2021 2021 intimated stakeholders discussing the preparation of the Cassava Response Action Plan in Mattru Jong that his Ministry is fully committed to working towards plant health.
He made those remarks during a one-day stakeholder conference where University Professors, researchers, Ph.D. and masters students, farmers, and farmer organizations were discussing the review of the National Action Plan on Cassava in line with the One Health approach.
The Agriculture Minister disclosed that the initiation of the Central and West African Virus Epidemiology (WAVE) was conceived after a meeting of African Agriculture Ministers in Benin in 2018.
He further recounted the many contributions of Njala University, SLAIRI, and his Ministry towards the actualization of the desire of the Government to fight the Cassava streak virus which is ravaging East Africa with few suspected cases in Central Africa.
Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Njala Campus and Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Njala University, Professor Bashiru Koroma, implored the Minister and the WAVE Project team to work towards improving the knowledge of farmers and farmer-based organizations and also effectively use the Standards Bureau blueprints in conducting the research of this nature.
He commended the One-health approach and noted that this is the way to go.
Project lead and Country Director of WAVE Sierra Leone, Dr. Alusaine Samura, gave an overview of the Project and emphasized that there is an urgent need to effectively collaborate and design a comprehensive National Action using the One Health platform to combat an imminent public health crisis on Sierra Leone’s second staple food, Cassava.
A number of experts also made presentations on Biosecurity, One Health coordination and plant health, and the role and commitment of the Ministry of Health and Sanitation in promoting the one health approach.
Madam Raymonda Johnson, Head Crop Protection Division, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and Associate Lecturer, Crop Protection Department, School of Agriculture and Food Sciences, Njala University also disclosed that the WAVE Project anchored at Njala University will also undertake participatory surveys in Bonthe, Kenema, and Kambia with the view to identify the various varieties of cassava and the types of viruses.
Bonthe District has the highest production rate in terms of Cassava while Kenema and Kambia have been preliminarily identified to have the mosaic cassava virus.
The Mattru Jong Meeting is expected to produce a revised National Action Plan on the preparation of the Cassava National Response Action Plan in line with the One-Health Approach.
Representatives of the One-Health platform made statements re-echoing the already established national structures within the One Health platform and how a visible collaboration with other players could put the country at a vantage point to combat the raging mosaic cassava virus from the Eastern bloc.
