SIERRA LEONE maq 4ª.indd - agrilife - Europa

5 Survey Methodology
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1) Upland land forest tree cropping system
(mainly coffee and cocoa)
2) Upland land food cropping system (mainly
rice)
3) Lowland (Inland Valley Swamp and Boliland)
food cropping system (mainly rice)
While a certain degree of overlapping in terms
of cropping orientation is present in the five districts
(given the nature of the agrarian system in Sierra
Leone), there is a strong differentiation between the
Northern and Eastern regions. Rice production is the
most prominent feature of household production in
the North. Cocoa and coffee are dominant crops
in the Eastern districts (Action Aid, 2008, 2009;
Welthungerhilfe, 2007, 2009).
Lastly, besides the socio-economic and farmlevel
production aspects the survey addresses also
questions on how relevant the different STABEX
Table 18. Distribution of sample observation
REGION DISTRICT CHIEFDOM
Northern region
Eastern region
Bombali
Tonkolili
Magbaeiamba
Ndohahun
Number of
VILLAGES
funded development and poverty reduction initiatives
were to farm households (in qualitative terms).
5.1.1 Sample Size and Selection
Three related criteria were taken into
consideration in defining the sample size. First,
the sample needed to be sufficiently inclusive,
so that not only the five districts involved were
equally represented (based on the number of
supported farms) but that the most common
types of farm households engaged in the different
cropping systems could be integrated. This is
particularly relevant, as in Sierra Leone, intercropping
practices are widespread. Second, the
sample had to be large enough to lend itself to
statistical inferences. Third, a control group of
farm households not benefitting from any type of
support was introduced and randomly selected
across all five districts in the proportion of the
total sample size in the Northern and Eastern
regions. Both purposive and stratified random
Total number of
RESPONDENTS
Number of respondents
in CONTROL GROUP
4 79 1
Bombali Sebora 4 118 14
Kholifa Rowalla 8 98 2
Tane 3 106 20
Kono Gorama Kono 4 65 10
Kenema
Kailahun
Nongowa 6 47 5
Lower Bambara 2 19 0
Peje West 3 27 1
Yawei 3 28 0
Upper Bambara 1 11 1
Mandu 1 6 1
Total 5 11 39 604 55