Liberia: 'Liberia Increased Rice Production By 53 Percent in 2023'

Liberia's agriculture minister, Dr. J. Alexander Nuetah said the country was able to increase rice production last year by 53 percent."I realized that from the report of the Emergency Rice Production Offensive initiative, we were able as a nation to develop 18,000 hectares with rice seed varieties which I think is remarkable.

The agriculture minister has set a target to support farmers to produce 50,000 metric tons of rice annually within the next six years. He said the target metric tonnage of lowland rice will ensure sufficient rice annually to reduce importation. "The reason we encourage people to go into farming is to use it for income generation. When the farmers produce metric tons of rice there must be off takers. This forum is supposed to be driving the discussion about the off takers and the producers so that we can go about finding an amicable solution. But this is only possible when prices are real. If you tell me a quantity of metric tons is out there, I must be able to find the resources to purchase it," he said.

Meanwhile, minister Nuetah has disclosed that his ministry is now revising the country's national agriculture investment plan to guide agricultural development for the next five years. "Both of the ministry's projects supported an increase in rice yield which has shown remarkable success. This was evidenced by the recent World Bank task team's visit in Lofa and Nimba counties during its February 2024 implementation mission," he said.

The World Bank agriculture specialist said the Bank is committed to working with the government through the Ministry of Agriculture to make food and nutrition security achievable. Dr. Zolue said that the ministry's intervention last year for rice and cassava was mainly focussing on seven counties. Commenting on the cassava value chain, Zolue said there were several varieties of cassava cuttings being multiplied and distributed to the farmers.

For his part, the MOA's RETRAP Project Operation Manager, Tarnue Jeke said that the findings from the workshop will go a long way in addressing pricing challenges in the rice and cassava value chains.

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