Sierra Leone

General Information

· Main climates: Tropical Wet and Dry, Tropical Wet

· Total land area: 7 162 000 ha

· Internal renewable water resources: 160 km³

· Incoming water flow: 0 km³

· GNP per capita, 1998: PPP$ 445

· Main food consumed: Rice, Oil & fat, Roots & tubers, Pulses, Wheat

· Rice supply, 1999: 148.7 kg paddy/capita/year

Basic Statistics

Producing Zones and Cropping Seasons

Rice is planted in almost all regions. The following table shows the harvested areas from different producing zones.

Rice is generally planted only during the rainy season.

Production Practices

The following figure shows the harvested areas from different ecologies during the last five years. The tidal wetland (or mangrove) rice is dominant in the category of other ecologies.

Upland rice is grown as a mono-crop or as in a mixture with other food crops following the slash-and-burn shifting cultivation almost without any application of chemical fertilizer and other agro-chemical. Similarly, rice production in the rainfed lowland and the tidal wetland ecologies follows the traditional systems with low or no application of external input. Land preparation is done mainly manually using only hand hoe. Transplanting is the popular method of crop establishment. Weeding is generally done manually. Farmers do not have adequate appropriate tools and equipment for harvesting and threshing of rice. A number of rice varieties have been released for cultivation.

The following table shows the results of the past studies on rice responses to fertilizer application.

Constraints and Issues of Sustainable Production

There are several constraints to sustainable rice production in Sierra Leone. Following are the majors:

• Dominant of upland shifting cultivation

• Drought in upland areas and drought and flash flood in rainfed lowland (or inland swamp) and tidal wetland (or mangrove) areas due to irregular weather

• Acidity and salinity in tidal wetland (or mangrove) areas

• Inadequate and Irregular input supplies: seeds, fertilizer and credit

• Lack of small farm equipment especially for post harvest operations

• Poor maintenance of developed swamps

• Poor drainage, Iron toxicity in undeveloped swamps

• Lack of effective farmer organization and co-operative

• Lack of a well-defined rice policy

• Poor road networks and marketing systems

• Weak research and extension support

• Recently, the deterioration of security situation

The country is recovering from war. Sustainable rice production would greatly depend on the establishment of appropriate policy to provide support to farmers especially in-terms of input supply and output marketing. The development of lowland rice production with improved water supply and control would be essential.

Research and Development Institutes

· Direction-General, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Marine Resources, Youyi Building, Brookfields, Freetown, Tel.: (232) 22 242136/242128, Fax: (232) 22 242128

· Land and water Development Division, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Tower Hill, PMB 187 Freetown

· Magbosi Integrated Agricultural Development Project Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources P.O. Box 545 Freetown Telex: 3418

· Planning, Evaluation, Monitoring and Statistics Division (PEMSD), Youyi Building, Brookfields, Freetown, Tel.: (232) 22 242415/242143, Fax: (232) 22 242128

· Rice Research Station, Rokupr, PMB 736 Freetown, Sierra Leone, Tel.: (232) 22 22 32 82, Fax: (232) 22 22 21 79, Telex:3210 Booth SL

· Seed Multiplication Project Ministry of Agriculture & Natural Resources Private Mail Bag 231 11A, Old Railway, Brookfields Freetown Phone: (232) 2224-1960 Telex: 3418 PEMSV SL

· WARDA Mangrove Rice Network, c/o Rokupr Rice Res. Stat.