By Foday Moriba Conteh
It is an established fact that over the years Sierra Leone has not yielded many dividends from the agricultural sector as more attention was paid on the mining sector. Even where efforts were made to revamp the agricultural sector such were not done in the appropriate ways to witness a sustainable growth in that sector.
And lamentably, corruption perpetrated by the very public officials who were charged with the responsibility to inject positive initiatives and steps to realize much benefits from agriculture, evident in the pilfering of seedlings, fertilizers, tractors, even worsen the situation. The country’s staple food, rice, is largely imported for domestic consumption and because of the costs involved it is sold at exorbitant prices per bags.
It is indeed very encouraging that in recent times private individuals and organizations have manifested the commitment and determination to go into agriculture including rice cultivation.
One of those organizations or institutions is the Faith Healing Bible Church which has as one of its appendages the Faith Healing Agricultural Development Organization. The organization, on Friday 9th October, 2020, commenced harvest on its 500 Acre of rice Farm as well as launching its first set of bags of Parboiled Rice during an event held at the Project farm site at Yainkassa Village, Makari Chiefdom, Bombali District, Northern Sierra Leone.
Speaking during the launch, the Director of Faith Healing Agricultural Development Organization (F.H.D.O), Pastor Francis A. M. Mambu, disclosed that they started the farm out of nothing but said because God spoke to him about going into farming he had faith in God that they will forge ahead.
He added that during a revelation to him to undertake farming God showed him two approaches furthering how they are currently carrying out a survey across the country in order to expand by having farms in all chiefdoms and districts in the country.
The Man of God stated that the farms will provide huge opportunities to invest in the production, processing and marketing of domestically produced rice in the country, adding that the various farms will also serve as a great support to residents in over 450 households and help mostly women farmers boost agriculture.
Pastor Mambu furthered that their current farm has created jobs for residents in the surrounding villages with women farmer-groups forming the major beneficiaries of not just the farm but also a microcredit scheme providing cash for six (6) villages such as Gbomsamba, Royeama, WorehYeama, Yainkassa, Royanka and Maronkoh in Northern Sierra Leone.
He called on the Government of Sierra Leone, through the Ministry of Agriculture and other pertinent stakeholders to support them with tractors in order to enable them to establish more farms across the country, adding that their vision is to move locals away from managing poverty towards an improved nutritional status and cash income whilst supporting food security.
“The lack of machines for harvesting and threshing of rice is a big challenge as we harvested our rice farm manually last year which was very challenging for such a vast acreage of rice,” he pointed out but expressed gratitude to the Ministry of Agriculture for availing them Combine Harvesters in order to harvest the 500 Aches of rice farm.
Pastor Mambu also highlighted the challenges and needs of the rice farm project such as machinery, finance, fertilizers, tools etc.
He extended appreciation to the Chief, the people and friends of the farm such as Rev. Steve Harma and his friend Ken Royal of the Ken’s Royal Foundation, Arms Around Africa, Bread and Water for Africa (BWA), for their tremendous contributions in making the farm project a success.
District Agriculture Officer of the Ministry of Agriculture, Bombali District, David Sellu Sallu, expressed appreciation to the Faith Healing Agricultural Project for the 500 Acres of farm rice which he described as massive, adding that as a Ministry they are very happy over such an initiative.
He said that the duty of the Ministry is to support production of which he said they will ensure they support the Faith Healing Agricultural Project.
The Agricultural said the Ministry currently has four priorities which they will roll out from 2018-2030 of which one among them is rice production as the country needs 700,000 metric tons of rice to feed the country’s 7 Million population and this can only be achieved if more attention is payed to rice cultivation.
He said the country has arable land to cultivate such quantity of rice as Bombali alone has over 30,000 acres of arable land to support production.
David Sellu Sallu said Government cannot do it alone and in that regard called on other sectors in society, including the private sector, NGOs etc. to come aboard in order to support production in the country.
He stated that as a Ministry they are proud to officially commission the Faith Healing Agricultural Project harvest of 500 Acre of rice Farm.
The Agricultural Officer disclosed that the Ministry has 150 tractors but they are been assembled at Kissy Dockyard and they will be distributed to all these districts across the country to support rice production.
Chief of Yainkassa village, Abdul Koroma, applauded the Director and CEO of F.H.D.O for what he termed as a fine initiative, adding that the farm has provided huge opportunities for them in that part of the country furthering that through the farm there has been jobs for locals in the surrounding villages with women farmer-groups forming the major beneficiaries of not just the farm but also a microcredit scheme providing cash for six (6) villages such as Yainkassa, Gbomsamba, Royeama etc.
He called on the Government, Local and International Non-Governmental Organizations to support the Servant of God in order to make Sierra Leone food sufficient.
Climaxing the event was the official launch of the 250 Bags of FHAP Parboiled Rice both 50Kg & 25Kg which is now for sale at Yainkassa Village, Bombali District.
