Agriculture

The Director of the Bureau of National Fisheries, Mr. Yevewuo Z. Subah, has called on Liberian farmers to see aquaculture as one activity in the agriculture sector that can build up the livelihood of people.

Aquaculture, also known as aquafarming or fish farming, is the process of raising fish and other kinds of seafood (shrimp, oysters, etc.), much in the same way agriculture works. In the same way portions of land are sectioned off to grow certain kinds of food, portions of water bodies are sectioned off (usually using nets) for raising sea food.

Speaking to reporters at Klay Fish Hatchery on Saturday, October 10, Subah said the quality of fish on the market is presently poor owing to the fact that many people are not engaged in fishery, yet the entire population depends only on sea fish to survive.

The Fisheries Bureau Director said engaging in aquaculture will also help give time for the sea fish to multiply.

The National Fisheries Director, who toured aquaculture sites in Montserrado, Bomi and Grand Cape Mount Counties along with participants of a workshop on fishery, told reporters that Aquaculture is one lucrative venture that is new in Liberia and emphasized the need to sensitize Liberians who are financially potent to go into it.

Several failed attempts have been made to make farming a major aspect of Liberian way of life. In the late 1970s, the Government of Liberia, under the leadership of President William R. Tolbert, increased the price of rice, Liberia’s staple, in order to motivate farmers in the country to produce more yields, and at the same time, attract many to invest in the agricultural sector.

The endemic of hunger has been an issue in Liberia, a West African country, for years. Liberians have a dependence on imported food, shipping in 90 percent of their rice, a growing threat with the global rise of food and fuel prices. Thirty-seven percent of children under five years suffer from chronic malnutrition, resulting in stunting in one-third of Liberian children and leaving one in five children underweight.
It is estimated that 74,000 children in Liberia will die of malnutrition by 2015 unless urgent action is taken.
Neigon Togoan, an instructor at the College of Agriculture and Forestry at the University of Liberia, has been pursuing a project at the University of Rhode Island (URI), attempting to combat and prevent this morbid prediction. Togoan has been completing research at URI's Nutrition and Food Science Center, dedicating 22 months to studying the nutritional analysis of plants indigenous to Liberia. His goal is to use local crops to formulate chicken feed and other animal feed, as well as create a cereal for children and adults to eat.

A 48-year-old visually impaired man since 1977, Mr. Yanquoi Gaye, says over the years he has made fishing baskets for sustainable living despite the huge challenges, stigma and odds associated with his physical impairment.

In an exclusive with the Daily Observer last weekend in Beesnoh Town, a stone's throw from Sanniquellie City in Nimba County, Mr. Gaye urged all organizations for blind operating in Monrovia and other urban areas to decentralize their relief and humanitarian activities.

“For too long in Liberia,” Mr. Gaye lamented, “blind organizations have refused to decentralize their humanitarian and relief programs to the most deprived and isolated communities in the country for selfish reasons.”

He explained that visually impaired Liberians residing in the rural parts of the country continue to live, work and endure hardship, such as abject poverty, deprivation, denial and discrimination even by their own relatives.

Basket maker Gaye further disclosed: “Besides making fish baskets for my livelihood, I have also been an enterprising cassava, eddoes and peanut farmer for the past 22 years.”

Farmer Gaye, also a father of four, intimated that it is through his hard and honest work on the baskets and farm that enabled him to foot the bills of his children's education at high school level in Nimba County.