SIERRA LEONE maq 4ª.indd - agrilife - Europa

Figure 34. Local participation in the community by the respondent in the Eastern and Northern regions
of Sierra Leone
Figure 35. Membership of farmer associations or groups in the Eastern and Northern regions of Sierra Leone
executive positions, including president (Figure
36). The perceived benefits from this membership
are ranked for the Eastern and Northern regions
separately (Figure 37 and Figure 38).
In the Eastern region, access to specialised
knowledge (for both marketing and processing) as
well as access to markets is perceived as the key
benefits from joining a farmer organisation. This
is congruent to the needs of cocoa and coffee
producers. In the Northern region access to seeds
and tools are the most perceived benefits, thus
reflecting the particular production challenges
of staple producers. These results could partially
be explained in terms of particular production
process necessities which are different between
rice and coffee or cocoa growers. In the Northern
districts, farmers aim at securing input access and
increasing their productivity and overall output
while in the East, farmers are highly concerned
with guaranteeing cash crop output is marketed
and sold at sufficiently high prices for which
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