Liberian farmers urged to grow more food

Margibi County Agriculture Coordinator has urged farmers in the county and Liberia at large to grow sufficient food so that they and their children can have at least two full meals a day rather than one.

Madam E. MusuTuahYounn, speaking to reporters over the weekend at her office in Kakata, said though she is not telling farmers to hang their clothes where their hands cannot fit, but they should apply more efforts to have their children fed at least morning and evening daily.

While realizing that Ebola has caused farmers here a lot, she warned that they should not only depend on single crop, but also consider planting vegetables, cassava, rice and other plants that are eatable.

Liberia’s staple food is rice, but the country has been unable to grow enough rice so successive administrations had relied on imported rice to feed the 4 million population, including the Sirleaf’s government.

Madam Younn noted that when farmers grow more, they could take some of their products to the market for sale and proceeds from there could help them to do other things.

The Margibi County Agriculture Coordinator, who is also engaged in farming on the premises of the Margibi County Agriculture Land Space in the World Bank Community in Kakata , said she grows almost every kind eatable plants apart from tree crops.

Speaking further, she narrated that the Ministry of Agriculture thought it wise to have provided seed rice and corns to all farmers in Liberia to be able to restore the lost seeds and prepare for the next farming season.

According to her, this was done because during the heat of the Ebola Virus in Liberia, farmers lost lots of seeds.

She disclosed that the Margibi Branch of the Ministry of Agriculture received 45 tons of seed rice and 11 tons of corn seeds, which according to her, have been distributed to farmers in all parts of the county.

She said over 2,000 and more farmers benefited from the distribution, adding that the five districts of Margibi benefitted from the seeds distribution. By Ramsey N. Singbeh, Jr. in Margibi – Editing by Jonathan Browne