By Dadson A. Musa

Feed Salone has been launched in Sierra Leone with the aim of maximizing food production and reducing the importation of our staple food, rice. And government cannot do it alone so private partners are needed to ensure it succeeds. Two of the major sites where the Feed Salone project will be concentrated are in remote areas of the country where road access in particular is a serious challenge.

Torma Bum, in Bonthe district, Gbondapi, in Pujehun district and Mambolo in Kambia district where the major rice projects are concentrated are very hard to go to places. Unlike the rice production site at in Bonthe, Pujehun and Kambia districts, Senehun, which is just on the highway between Freetown and Bo in the Moyamba district is a place that government needs to pay attention to for quick and easy returns in this Feed Salone drive. There’s vast farmland which has been cultivated over the years and there are more untapped and vast farmlands in that same chiefdom.

Proximity to market is key in this Feed Salone drive and Senehun provides just that. A private partner, Sierra Greenfields has invested heavily in rice farming in Senehun. And their method of farming mainly is mechanization. Bockarie Samba is C. E. O. and has been so passionate about farming that he left his UN job to seize the opportunities in farming in Sierra Leone. “Feed Salone is about smallholder farmers, so I have formed 10 groups, each with a farmland and they’re all being presided over by the Paramount Chief, Sovula.” CEO, Bockarie realizes the hunger in the Chiefdom in particular and the country as a whole which is why he came from his cozy job in the UN to ” help his country.”

He has partnered with Njala University to make sure the farming methods are up to date with climate change issues in mind. And he has started getting support from the F.S.R.P. (Food Systems Resilience Project) funded by the World Bank. They are going to help him with irrigation so rice production can be done more than once a year. And an additional 100 hectares of rice farm is going to be done this planting season with the help of FSRP. The minister has warned farmers who convert e- vouchers to monetary benefits to ” desist forthwith as this time they want to see it implemented on the farms.” Sierra Greenfields Farm has not only done work in rice production but cassava and vegetables also, so for government to start seeing quick returns on feed salone project which citizens are too eager for, they need to be supported in Senehun, along Bo/ Freetown highway in the Moyamba district.

 Copy right –Printed in the Expo Times News on MONDAY, April 8th, 2024 (ExpoTimes News – Expo Media Group (expomediasl.com)