It is worthy of note that obstructionists have been touting the establishment of state farms in an economy that is slated to be private sector driven according to the Presidential Address by President Bio. This paradigm shift of policy at once suggests that the public sector has not achieved its desired objectives.
State farms per se could be very instrumental in the country’s march towards food security but it is the attitude of citizens towards public property that matters Government property like buildings, vehicles and furniture etc are often treated with reckless abandon because they deem them as nobody’s property. Which is why the advocacy for the establishment of state farms should be dismissed out of hand?
Talking about the establishment of state farms our attention would naturally be drawn to rice farming because the commodity is our staple food .Though there is nothing wrong in getting a sufficiency of our staple food it is the overdependence on rice ignoring other commodities that can be problematic .The earlier government embarks on a campaign to wean people away from sole dependence on rice the better. Thankfully Cassava from which garri is produced has been standing in the gap as it were thereby saving hundreds of thousands from starvation. Unfortunately some people live to eat instead of eating to live.
It is also noteworthy that Sierra Leone had been an exporter of rice its staple food but now has sadly been importing millions of dollars worth of rice each year after decades of independence when the country by now should have been increasing its exports of rice .According to the 2015 Comprehensive Food Security and Vulnerability Analysis study conducted by the World Food Programme (WFP) and Food Agriculture Organisation (FAO) 49.8 percent of households were food insecure in 2015 compared to 45 percent in 2010 .That is they consumed limited or insufficient food to maintain a healthy and active life. Global Hunger Index 2017 ranks Sierra Leone as the third hungriest Country in the world with percentage of population that is undernourished estimated at 38.5 percent compared to 28.6 percent in Guinea and 16.2 in Ghana. Readers would agree with us that with all our entire natural and mineral resources Sierra Leone has no business becoming the third hungriest country in a world of at least 193 countries noting that China with more than one billion citizens feeds itself.
From time immemorial prisoners have been helping in the cultivation of plantations and some other public chores In recent times under the out gone profilgate regime youth farms were established which were maladministered to such an extent that they were written off .These were some of the youth projects for which former President Koroma vowed to lay down his life while he was wallowing in luxury.
With his private sector driven investment in agriculture the New Direction has already hit the ground running by requiring the political class and urban middle class by demonstrating interest in agriculture as a pre condition for holding political office. This condition by which politicians will monitor their own farms and animal husbandry as happens in some other African countries will more than compensate for advocated state farms by ill motivated citizens .
The New Direction should pay heed to an internationally acclaimed technocrat Professor Monty Jones the inventor of the Nericca Rice who said in his END OF TENURE LETTER that ‘’the impact of the actions and decisions I took as Minister of Agriculture will be far reaching in the coming years. Though I am leaving this position I am still very much a scientist and an agriculture person and will continue to lend my expertise to the country and people when the need arises’’ .So let it be. Not all persons who served the APC were blue-blooded members.
Government should by all means shelve the idea of State farms .Let the advocates of that pernicious idea perish the thought.