Agricultural fairs, sharing emerging impact

5 July 2011

RIU Sierra Leone update: Djasma Tangula

Research Into Use (RIU) Sierra Leone has put research into use at scale and supported farmers engaged in agricultural enterprises. These engagements are worth celebrating as the adoption of research outputs by farmers and partners have positively impacted their lives. It is anticipated that evidence of farmers' increased output on agricultural/poultry production with the new approaches/innovations introduced by RIU will positively influence policy development and regulation.

At the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food Security's National Agricultural Trade Fair in Makeni in northern Sierra Leone, RIU collaborated with all stakeholders nationwide to showcase how many improvements have being made in the agriculture sector. We also showed how much each stakeholder had contributed to minimizing poverty, improving livelihoods of the local farmers and enhancing income.

A key part of RIU's communications strategy is the use of short films, stories/testimonies etc. As we finalize the approach to measuring our achievement, this will reveal/show an accumulation and evaluation of evidence.

PAID
The majority of PAID's ((Partnership in Agricultural Innovation for Development) partners in the north are community based organizations (CBOs), followed by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and farmer based organizations (FBOs). In the Northern Province, the overwhelming majority of partners (73.2%) are CBOs followed by FBOs (16.1%) and NGOs (10.7%). The high percentage of CBOs reflects the predominance of agriculture as the main economic activity in that region. RIU Sierra Leone has been supporting our commodity platforms by facilitating activities and experimentations to overcome challenges in indigenous farming and production. This can be achieved by offering help over the critical problems using innovation systems.

Activities focused on learning relevant skills, stimulating and promoting the utilization of new knowledge and technologies among farmers has been RIU's target.

Solar Drying
The solar drying innovation adoption has been enormous to meet the demand of farmers wishing to reducing spoilage of post-harvest losses and adding value to their crops to improve their economic livelihoods. We demonstrated the solar drying during the national trade faie.


The Binkolo Growth Center displayed the following


Over 4,000 households accessing better information and advice on RIU's solar drying technology through our stakeholder partners reach more households using innovative community radio programmes, giving access to information and increased awareness of solar drying inputs and information. Most farming families in the north benefit from increased food security through improved access to improved crop varieties and farming practices, which edges them towards food security.

Juice
Another success story exhibition at the trade fair was by the Lewado Fruit Juice Manufacturing Agency. The PAID Coordinator took the opportunity to talk to Ms Mariatu Jusu, the head of the organization, who expressed fears of limited access to packaging equipments in Sierra Leone. Good packaging boosts the sale of the finished products and means local products can compete with the international market.


Many young Sierra Leonean farmers have been exposed to improved agricultural practices and income generating ideas through our multi-media communication initiative. In addition our demonstration plots directly impact on thousands of farmers helping to increasing their yields per hectare.

The impacts farm households experience dependents on their crops. They include: increased income, job creation for youths and women and increased access to protein from poultry. Many of these factors impact particularly on youths and women. More farming households will be using tractor hire services and other modern farming tools, increasing their productive acreage by 30%.