Since the end of the civil war, many Liberians have
been facing severe hunger problems, while one-third
of Liberians are undernourished. Per capita food production
in Liberia today is almost zero because many subsistence
Liberian farmers abandoned their towns and villages
in the Liberian countryside for the safety of Monrovia
and other places. But the need for food self-sufficiency
and agricultural production in Liberia is so urgent
that the new national leaders in Liberia will have
to use their political leadership to rally Liberians
together to deal with the increased strain on national
resources, energy supply, and infrastructural development
by creating new challenges and new opportunities for
all Liberians. Liberia needs a new national leadership
with a new strategy to embark on a program of national
integration and reform, with the aim of returning
to those traditional values and leadership styles
that promoted less violence and led to food sufficiency,
if we ever wish to free ourselves from the stranglehold
of foreign cultural dominance on Liberian society.
The “sorry state” our nation is in today
derives either from misinformation about our soil
and forest resources, or a complete lack of appreciation
for our own ability to feed ourselves and develop
our country. Liberia urgently needs robust agricultural
development plans, probably a 10-Year Plan or two
Five-Year Plans devoted to agricultural production
if the Liberian people must lessen the current dependency
on foreign food commodities and enjoy food self-sufficiency
in the fourth Liberian republic and thereafter, after
the 2005 elections.
In order to sustain itself as a sovereign and stable
state after the elections, Liberia must begin to seriously
consider an agricultural revolution similar to the
Chinese Cultural Revolution in 1949. Under its “Great
Leap Forward” plan or agricultural self-sufficiency
program, the Chinese, in less than 10 years (by 1958),
had an estimated “750,000 agricultural producers'
cooperatives, now designated as production brigades.
These cooperatives were amalgamated into about 23,500
communes, each averaging 5,000 households, or 22,000
people” (Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia); (Satya
J. Gabriel, 1998). The Chinese “Great Leap Forward”
plan established an innovative socioeconomic communal
or collective farm system dominated mostly by people
in the Chinese countryside. The Chinese achieved local
food self-sufficiency under the innovative cooperative
farming system and soon emerged as key exporters of
food products to other nations. Liberia could emulate
the Chinese example since most Liberian farmers also
lived in the Liberian countryside as their Chinese
counterparts.
The Way Forward
With only a little over three million people, Liberia
might not need 10 years like the Chinese to achieve
food self-sufficiency, if the new political leadership
of Liberia would only make agricultural production
a national priority and rally the Liberian people
to the cause. I believe that one of the most effective
ways to reduce hunger and future civil disturbance
in Liberia is to improve agricultural productivity
with what we have and not what we hope we have. When
the rest of the world sees how serious we are to curtail
our dependency on other nations for our basic food
supplies by producing our own food, we are likely
to attract the world’s attention in a positive
way that might lead to assistance in modern farm tools
and equipment to improve our own indigenous farming
technologies. And, like James Allen once said, “No
one can help a weak person unless the weak person
is willing to be helped.” Certainly, no one
can help rebuild Liberia but Liberians. So, a national
agricultural production program that pulls together
the human and economic resources of the Liberian people
might not only lead to increased food production and
reductions in the rates of poverty and unemployment,
but might also attract international goodwill in the
forms of the donation of modern farming tools and
implements.
Because food security is important for the national
growth and development of any country, the fourth
Liberian republic must commit to a long-term agricultural
development program duly sanctioned through legislative
enactment, and supported by the executive branch of
government. In other words, a national policy geared
toward food self-sufficiency through a return to the
soil would be the first step to eliminating Liberia’s
current dependence on foreign food imports for daily
consumption by the Liberian people. But we must return
to the soil strategically and not blindly. We need
to test the soil in each of the 15 political subdivisions
of Liberia and plant only those crops that will net
the best and maximum yields in each county, whether
our goal is to produce rice, cassava, eddoes, potatoes,
or cocoa. These are food stuffs that Liberians know
and can trust their children lives on for survival.
Asking our nation to replace its indigenous crops
with imported beans amounted to asking them to risk
their children lives on a new crop which taste and
care are foreign to our people. In other words, these
kinds of suggestions or impositions are the result
of lack of self-sufficiency and dependency.
The 100,000-plus former combatants from Liberia’s
14-year civil war (IRIN) and other unemployed Liberians
could be trained as farmers and sent to specialty
farms in each political subdivision as a way to prevent
loitering, begging, street crimes by former combatants
and other unemployed persons. Hence, there is no need
to change our staple food with beans when we have
surplus of manpower.
We need to take seriously the idea that food production
is a must in Liberia so we can not only feed ourselves,
but so we can also redirect current resources spent
on food inputs to other pressing socio-economic development
projects such as the construction of farm-to-market
roads, schools, and clinics throughout Liberia. Our
national leaders and we cannot continue to pay lip
service to food production in Liberia, while wishing
otherwise. And I think Mr. Geepu-Nah Tiepoh clearly
made the argument for increased food production in
Liberia when he wrote in Blinded by Free Trade and
Comparative Advantage Dogma, that “Most students
of Liberia's modern economic history, perhaps with
the exception of our critic, are aware that successive
Liberian governments, since at least the early 1970s,
have to different degrees embarked upon a strategy
of rice self-sufficiency. Under its 1976-1980 National
Socio-Economic Plan, the Tolbert government, for example,
introduced and pursued this policy option. The Doe
government also made similar efforts in the 1980s.
About a year ago, Taylor gave his most vocal support
yet to this strategy when he accused Liberians of
being "too lazy" to produce their own food,
and threatened that "anyone who wanted to eat
imported rice would pay more for it" (Star Radio
Liberia Daily News Bulletin, 24 October 1999).
Recommendations
As Mr. Tiepoh implied in the excerpts quoted above,
too much lip-service regarding agricultural production
in Liberia has yielded no tangible results, so the
new national leaders in Liberia after the 2005 elections
will have to show concrete actions through commitment
to a realistic national food production program. I
believe for agricultural production to succeed in
Liberia, our leaders must focus on the urgency to
return to old era of self-sufficiency. Our nation
has the capability to feed herself as in the past,
but we need a leader who will make agricultural production
a national priority and who will rally the nation
to such endeavor. The government could partner with
private Liberians to set up national farming plantations
and factories that will grow and produce rice, eddoes,
potatoes, plantains, oranges, grapefruits, pawpaws,
guavas, bananas, pineapples and other food crops for
local consumption and export.
In addition, the government needs to institute direct
buy or “special” payment program to farmers
for their produce, as a way of encouraging Liberian
farmers to produce more crops. The government should
also provide direct subsidy to Liberian farmers in
the form of low interest loan program to encourage
the production of farm products. These proposals are
not so difficult to implement if Liberia has the right
national leadership that understands that economic
modernization, political triumph and social movement
require the goodwill and cooperation of all classes
of Liberian people. And because the key to food self-sufficiency
in Liberia is a strong and committed political leadership,
the following administrative actions must be heeded
as a matter of urgency in any national drive towards
food or agricultural production in Liberia:
· Establishment of 4th Republic National Farms
for cassava, plantain, eddoes, potatoes, pineapples,
grapefruits, oranges, guava, pawpaw, plum, bananas
· Government to purchase the food from the
farmers as a mean of encouragement
· Technology to prolong the lives of harvested
crops and produce
· Creating and supporting science and technology
at the national universities and colleges to improve
the welfare of all people through agricultures
· Research program at the nation higher institutions
of learning to enhance the management of our nation’s
rich biological heritage
· Plan and develop five to 10- year programs
for national livestock production
· Government to develop and contract an environmental
friendly technology to increase cold water fish and
crabs population
· National plan to encourage blacksmiths in
conjunction with the University of Liberia School
of Engineering/Technology to produce small farm instrument
to be sold on Liberian markets to reduce dependency
on imported Chinese machetes, axes, knives, etc. Such
a national plan could provide a reciprocal benefits:
employment and the beginning of a national industry.
Our nation is in urgent need of the creative talents
of all her sons and daughters. We must therefore call
for an end to continuing dependency on other nations
for production of our staple food and other agricultural
products, which is a source for outsiders disrespecting
us because they control our stomach. It has been said
through history that dependence on agriculture knows
no boundaries. Our nation should not erect that boundary.
Kwi or country, wealthy or poor, boy or girl, young
and old, agriculture is the lifeline of our country
that supports us all. An understanding of agriculture
is imperative for the socio-economic and political
well-being of every Liberian. Our nation has the soil
and natural habitats for ample agricultural activities
leading to reasonable, safe and plentiful food supplies,
clothing and shelter, poultries, plants, and animals,
and natural resources for recreation, companionship
and aesthetic value.
About the author: Dr. Syrulwa Somah is an Associate
Professor of Environmental and Occupational Safety and
Health at NC A&T State University in Greensboro,
North Carolina. He is author of: The Historical Resettlement
of Liberia and Its Environmental Impact, Christianity,
Colonization and State of African Spirituality, and
Nyanyan Gohn-Manan: History, Migration & Government
of the Bassa (a book about traditional Bassa leadership
and cultural norms published in 2003). Somah is also
the Executive Director of the Liberian History, Education
& Development, Inc. (LIHEDE), a nonprofit organization
based in Greensboro, North Carolina. He can be reached
at: somah@ncat.edu or lihede@att.net
