By Amin Kef Sesay
NRA denies that it is not their tax regimes that have caused the dramatic increases in the prices of basic essential commodities such as fuel, rice, cement, and all imported goods but other economic factors, mainly having to do with the fall in the value of the Leone against the Dollar, Pound and Euro since this Government came to power in early 2018.
Fact of the matter is that whatever impressive development gains this Government makes, if it cannot deal effectively and quickly with the issue of the rising cost of bread and butter items, the majority of the people, just as in the case of what happened to Ex-President Koroma and the APC Government after the Ebola disaster would not count those development gains as anything.
Put in very simple language, hunger does not befriend poor people to their leaders and their Governments. There is an old Nigerian proverb that says “fine words do not produce food”. So I will keep my words as simple and clear as possible.
As such, if we are talking about reducing poverty, the first point of call is dealing effectively with rising food prices. It is vital that healthy ecosystems underpin human health, wellbeing, livelihoods, jobs and sustainable growth.
Along that line, if this Government wants to achieve food security, they must ensure that we look after the vital ecosystems that allow us to produce our own food and abundantly to make it cheap.
Sadly, though unspoken, the majority of poor Sierra Leoneans in both urban and rural settings go to bed hungry every night while malnutrition continues to children who die before they reach the age of five.
These stark statistics are hard to grapple with. Imagine for a moment the pain of a mother who cannot feed her newborn daughter with the proper food she needs to live beyond the age of five. Imagine the mother who toils all day in the field but still goes to bed with a stomach aching from hunger because she cannot afford enough food to feed her family.
There is another West African proverb: ”It is a fool whose tomatoes are sold to him.” We cannot afford to continue making other countries farmers rich whilst ours remain poor and we the people hungry.
The Agriculture Minister before this one said we use over USD300 million annually importing foods that can be easily grown here in the process creating hundreds of thousands of jobs at all district levels. Only agriculture can drive the economic transformation that the country so badly needs.
The resources saved could be used to empower more women, end hunger, achieve food security, improve nutrition, combat climate change, create jobs and promote sustainable agriculture, leading to the attainment of the global goals, 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Simply raising crop yields by 10 percent would greatly reduce rural hunger and poverty. We have the knowledge to do it.
The benefits of an ecosystem-based approach to agriculture are clear in terms of its linkages to sustainable commercial value chains that will definitely boost farmers’ incomes and create up to 1 million jobs while catalysing an agricultural sector that could easily generate USD1 billion and more annually.
It means looking after our soils and our water sources. And it means sharing the knowledge and the technology that allows us to do all of these things. If we can do this – if we can optimize food production by embracing an ecosystem-based adaptation approach to agriculture – we can boost yields in the space of five years by over 300 percent.
What is exciting about the prospects in agriculture for the country is that it does not require enormous resources. We must also focus our efforts on improving every part of the food chain. We will have to improve our transport links and storage facilities so that we don’t waste so much food after it is harvested.
