SIERRA LEONE maq 4ª.indd - agrilife - Europa

7 Conclusions
158
Table 34. Basic Comparison of smallholders in the surveyed Northern and Eastern regions of Sierra Leone
Northern region: Tonkolili and Bombali districts Eastern region: Kenema, Kono and Kailahun districts
Factors of production:
Smaller cultivated area Larger cultivated area
Crop orientation: mainly rice and hardly any cash tree crops Crop orientation: mainly cash tree crops (coffee, cocoa)
Production (rice):
Lower yields Higher yields
Higher losses Lower losses
Limited cash income More cash income
Higher reliance on secondary off-farm activities than on
remittances
Leone is deficient. Based on our survey, under
current technology and farming conditions, an
average of 3 acres in the uplands and 2 acres in
the lowland (IVS) per person would be needed
in order to fulfil the basic dietary requirement;
however, only around 1-2 acres/person is
available on average. This implies that production
technology and shifting cultivation system must
be altered so that not only yields are increased
sufficiently to maintain the present (and future)
household population, but that resources
(mainly land under cultivation or idle/fallow and
forests) are managed in a sustainable manner.
The national development plan NSADP (2009)
favours permanent cropping systems as a way
to overcome the current situation and preserve
forest cover. The latter could also be ideally
accompanied by a reduction of output losses
both at pre- and post-harvest periods. However,
the introduction of a new agrarian system in
Sierra Leone is not straightforward (as will be
further explained in section 7.5). For instance,
if permanent cultivation is promoted, not only
a timely supply of (mainly imported) inputs
(fertilizers, machinery, fuel) must be ensured
to a large number of smallholders dispersed in
remote areas but also adequate training must be
provided. This translates into higher dependence
on international markets and agricultural
research which is at present not sufficiently
focused on the needs of tropical agricultural
systems (Pingali, 2007). Thus, specific challenges
Lower reliance on secondary off-farm activities than on
remittances
must be addressed. For instance, regarding
the use of chemical fertilizers and improved
seeds effective schooling is essential in order to
reduce land pollution/degradation in the case
of the former and achieve higher yields for the
latter. The impact of introducing new equipment
or machinery is also not entirely unambiguous
as it could either release labour to the off-farm
sector or/and increase the rate of deforestation
(i.e. Jevons paradox or effect). However,
machinery could be a solution to harvest losses
due to labour shortages in peak periods. It will
be necessary to review in further detail how the
labour requirements of a permanent cultivation
system will be fulfilled. In fact, it is rather the
number of family members that determine the
size of the cultivated area than the actual total
land area available to the family (Sesay, et al,
2004). Anyhow, although the survey at hand was
not meant to address the issue of mechanisation,
it is clearly of the utmost importance to the future
development of the agricultural sector in Sierra
Leone, West Africa and most tropical agricultural
systems under shifting cultivation.
Another similarity in agrarian systems
of both surveyed regions (and for the rest of
Sierra Leone as well) is that only the most basic
agricultural equipment and tools (e.g. handhoe)
are available and transport infrastructure
is considered largely inadequate. Also, it is
common for farmers within villages to organise