By Thaimu T Kamara

In Kambia District, a largely agricultural  area in the North‐West of Sierra Leone, many women rely heavily on farming to secure their livelihoods. Since the launched of the ” Feed Salone Initiatives by the president of the Republic Sierra Leone.  Dr. Julius Maada Bio and  through the Ministry of Agriculture and food Security

Women in Kambia District are deeply involved in crop cultivation, particularly rice, groundnuts, cassava, vegetables and other root crops.

The district’s main livelihood activities are farming (rice and root crops) followed by cross-border trade between Sierra Leone and Guinea.

In one community, Rokupr town, at SLARI  a seed-bank initiative enabled women to plant rice and groundnut, yielding “over 30  bushels of rice, more than 20 bushels of groundnut and over 10 mbags of millet”.

These activities are both for subsistence and Commercial purpose.(feeding the family) and income (selling surplus) and illustrate how women in the district are actively engaged in agricultural activities in the District.

The Sierra Leone Agricultural Rice Research Institute  SLARI  in Kambia District with a partnership project from  FAO trained women’s groups in cooperative management, agronomic practices, business planning and out-grower models. In Kambia this enabled the women to scale up plantings and harvests.

A report noted that women in Kambia’s Kawula village benefited from a rice-mill machine donation which replaced the labor-intensive manual pounding of rice husks. This freed up women’s time and increased processing capacity.

These demonstrate how external support (seed banks, mechanisation, training) has enabled women to improve their productivity, incomes and autonomy.

Challenges & gender-specific barriers

Despite the progress, female farmers in Kambia District face persistent obstacles. Some of the key challenges:

Land access and ownership: In Kambia, only about 7.18 % of female‐headed households reportedly owned land; women’s land access is limited and many must rent farmland or seek permission to use it.

Lack of tools, inputs and storage: In Magbema Chiefdom (Kambia), women farmers pleaded for hoes, shovels, rakes, seeds and other farm tools because they lacked them; they also lacked proper storages so their reserved seeds sometimes rot.

Labour intensity and unpaid work: Women’s roles often include domestic work plus agricultural labour; in many cases male decision-making dominates in farming and women’s work remains undervalued.

These barriers mean that while women are central to agriculture in Kambia, their contributions are often constrained and their potential under-realised.

Opportunities & what’s needed.

For women farmers in Kambia District, the path forward involves scaling up what works and addressing the structural barriers. Some important directions include:

Expanding access to land, securing tenure and ensuring women can use and benefit from farmland more equitably.

Providing more affordable tools, mechanisation, and storage facilities to boost productivity and reduce post-harvest losses.

Strengthening cooperatives and women’s groups to improve market access, business skills, collective bargaining and incomes.

Building resilience to shocks (climate change, pandemics) by diversifying crops, adopting improved practices, and linking into value chains.

Recognising and valuing the role of women in agriculture, ensuring they have a voice in decision-making and benefit fairly from their labour and produce.

In Kambia District, women farmers are actively cultivating crops, generating income and supporting their households. But their success is tempered by challenges of land, inputs, labour and external shocks. With targeted interventions—seed banks, training, mechanisation, cooperatives—they are making progress. For sustainable change, deeper structural support is required so that women’s agricultural livelihoods in Kambia can be transformed into stable, equitable and resilient sources of income.

Copyright –Published in Expo Times News on Friday, 31st October 2025 (ExpoTimes News – Expo Media Group (expomediasl.com)