Sierra Leone to Become Self-Sufficient in
Rice Once Again
Rice is a most interesting crop, not
only in Sierra Leone, but throughout the West African region. When
we last looked at it, back in January, 2016,
we saw that West Africans in general and Sierra Leoneans in particular,
are heavy and increasing rice eaters. Average rice consumption in
Sierra Leone is approximately half a pound (0.25 Kg) per person per
day. In general, if the
Sierra Leonean has not eaten rice yet in the day he will tell you that
he has not eaten. Plain and simple. The Sierra Leonean demand for rice
is quite simple to visualize and calculate. By rule of thumb, the
household chef daily cooks one cup of rice for each mouth there is to
feed. Granted some will eat rice in the morning and then rice again in
the evening, but these champion rice eaters are more or less cancelled
out by the suckling babies and toddlers. And so on average the Sierra
Leonean eats 365 cups of rice in a year. All the market women will tell
you there are some 190 cups of rice in a 50 Kg bag. Thus average rice
consumption is approximately 2 bags (ie 100 Kg) of rice per person per
year. Total Sierra Leonean rice consumption per year, assuming a
population of 7 million, is thus 700 million Kg, or 700,000 Metric
Tons. A comparable figure can be arrived at by adding the official
trade figures for annual rice importation to the estimated figures for
domestic rice production. (Sierra Leone's population has probably
increased significantly since the
last census, in December, 2015, found just over 7 million persons).
It used to be, up until the early
1950s that Sierra Leone was able to satisfy its demand for rice through
its domestic production. Some accounts speak glowingly of former rice
exporting prowess, but these are exaggerations - Clarke (Sierra Leone in Maps
) gives a miniscule 1,024 tons exported in 1935. Since 1950, however,
Sierra Leone has been unable to satisfy its rice demand and has had to
rely on importation. Whitaker
gives rice importation figures (tonnage and value) for the years 1954
through 1969. During this period imports averaged some two to three
million US dollars. Today Sierra Leone's annual rice imports cost the
nation some two hundred
million US dollars. This same drama, or tragedy, has been repeated to a
greater or lesser extent in most other West African countries.
The promise of rice self-sufficiency has been dangled many times over
the decades. Sierra Leone, with the highest rainfall in West Africa,
should be well-placed to even be a net exporter of rice, a heavily
water-dependent crop. Succeeding Sierra Leonean governments have
introduced a whole host of measures to attempt to boost production,
including rice extension services to swamp areas, introduction of
mechanical ploughing, rice seed multiplication schemes, creation of the
Rice Corporation and the Torma Bum Rice Development Authority.
International agricultural and funding agencies have not been idle in
this effort, including the FAO, the World Bank, the African Development
Bank and others. Foreign nations have also lent a helping hand,
including the Chinese, with their rice research
and demonstration farms,
Germans (GTZ with its Rice Seed Multiplication project) and the
Americans, who had close ties with rice research efforts at the
agricultural college, Njala.
The result of all these efforts to boost rice production has been
spectacular failure, as indicated by the figures given above.
Now comes a new scheme with a new prospect of rice self-sufficiency. In
September this year contracts
were signed between the Sierra Leone government and a Turkish company,
SALA Group,
for a $275 million investment in rice plantations on, depending
on the account, 57,000 or 110,000 hectares in the Turma Bum, Bonthe,
area. This is a riverain area that has received government
attention for rice development since the 1950s. One
internet accountreports
on an agriculture ministry press briefing on the project thus: The project will ensure the production of
rice three times in a year, using irrigation and other advanced
agricultural systems.
“Sierra Leone needs a total of 900 metric tons of rice to adequately
feed its people, so with the projected 1.6 million metric tons of rice
set to be produced the country will have an excess of 700 metric tons
for possible export out of the country,” [Minister of Agriculture] Mr.
Ndanema said.
Under the most optimistic scenario based on global experience it does
not appear that this project alone could enable us to achieve rice
self-sufficiency, let alone significant exports. It is not known
on what basis the Turkish company SALA won this contract. Information
on this company is not readily available from the internet. Turkey is
not usually thought of as one of the strong rice-growing countries in
the world.