By Dadson A. Musa
The Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security in collaboration with the Njala University have staged and awareness raising ceremony about a virus that threatens our second staple food in Sierra Leone, cassava. This virus is referred to as East African Cassava Mosaic Virus and it originated from Uganda. This disease is so viral that if not contained can make the growing of cassava for consumption either impossible or can threaten the food security that government of Sierra Leone seeks to address. This disease which had spread all the way from east Africa and is now in neighbouring Guinea is transmitted through white fly. And in a ceremony that was held at the ministry’s conference room on Wednesday, 18th. September 2024 which was chaired by deputy security secretary in the ministry, Mustapha Kanneh. the Chief Agriculture Officer in the ministry in his welcome address entreated stakeholders to “treat the session with every seriousness as cassava being our second staple food stands the risk of being gravely affected and we must act immediately and decisively.”
Presenting a position paper on the origin, method of spread and how to effectively tackle it, Professor Pita from Cameroun said that they “secured funding initially from Warwick University in America to the tune of $153,000 with additional funding expected to come from FAO to first start with survey and then train personnel on a project as serious as this.” That they are calling on government of Sierra Leone to make available to them the “required agencies, personnel, facilities and most importantly duty waivers as they will be importing equipment for the for the project to kick off in a sustainable way.” And that there is need for multi-dimensional and collective approach to succeed in this fight against the cassava virus He cautioned Sierra Leoneans to be alert as the virus can be deadly if allowed to spread and can lead to crop yield loss. So, the West African Cassava Mosaic Virus-Uganda Variant has been formed in consultation with Njala University. Dr. Alusine Samura lectures at the Njala University and is the lead consultant for this project and he seemed very optimistic about the project and expressed that they “are acting in time to prevent the disease from spreading into Sierra Leone from neighbouring Guinea.” This they are doing through awareness-raising so that farmers in Sierra Leone can take the preventive measures to avoid yield loss or economic loss. That $110,000 has been raised for this project and they will be working with farmers from across Sierra Leone.
The Chief Agricultural Officer in the ministry called on all and sundry to put hands on deck to actualize the success of this project as it can help to avert a real threat to the feed Salone project which they have already heavily invested in.