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May PEACE Prevail in Sierra Leone!
May PEACE Prevail on Earth!

The Need for an Exclusive Focus: The Rural Poor
Adelmuhsin M. Al-Sudeary
President, International Fund for Agricultural Development

One of the great disappointments of development efforts over the past three decades is the limited impact such efforts have made on the poorest segments of the population in most developing countries. In many countries, despite significant growth in the national economy, the bottom 30 or 40 percent of the population has not only been bypassed but in many cases left even poorer. The great challenge of the 1970s was the search for alternative development strategies and policies that would directly benefit the poorest people. The creation of IFAD in 1977, with a special mandate to focus on food production and on the rural poor, was one of the concrete responses to this challenge.

While other agencies, including multilateral development banks devote special resources to agriculture and rural development, no other institution focuses exclusively on the rural poor, particularly the landless. IFAD seeks both to promote a more rapid agricultural growth in the low income food deficit areas and to create employment among the landless poor so that they can purchase the food they require. By focussing on the rural poor, IFAD seeks to break the grasp of rural poverty that is the underlying causes of world hunger and malnutrition.

The Chief Executive of CADS, Mr. Kenday Samuel Kamara (standing with white shirt) addressing the farming community of Mobekay.

Causes of Poverty

Hunger, malnutrition, illiteracy and poor health are well-known and visible indicators of poverty, but the real causes of such poverty are rooted in a complex web of economic, social, political and geographical factors. One of the basic characteristics of poverty is lack of access to land and other rural assets. In most developing countries about 15 to 20 percent of the population are landless and another 15 to 20 percent are very small farmers owning half a hectare or less. These people subsist from the meager output of their small holdings or from the agricultural labor they perform under highly unfavorable tenancy or share-cropping arrangements.

Many of the rural poor often live in isolated or remote areas in arid regions or mountain valleys. People living in such areas are not only subjected to social discrimination, but have only minimal access to governmental services or other essential inputs. Another disturbing feature of the rural scene in a large number of developing countries is the plight of rural women and elderly men, left to work on their small farms while young male members migrate to cities.

Even where the rural poor are not living in physical isolation but are small farmers or landless workers in densely populated areas, they have no real opportunity to participate actively in the process of development. They are generally excluded from decision-making because their economic and social circumstances allow them little status or power. Their economic assets are often too small to make them credit-worthy by traditional standards or permit them to take risks with new technologies or market their meager surpluses at reasonable prices.

These fundamental causes of poverty are often compounded by seasonal and cyclical factors such as droughts or periodical fluctuations in commodity prices. More recently, local wars or border conflicts have become another cause of widespread misery for millions of people who have been uprooted from their homes and land.

In situations where widespread poverty is chronic and self-perpetuating, the process can be reversed only by deliberate policy actions supported by a series of programs that would help to deal with the fundamental causes of poverty. These include land reform and other related policies and employment generating programs to give the small farmers and landless workers a fair share of available resources and services.

During the first five years of its operations, IFAD has financed 15 credit projects, with another 18 projects having significant credit components. All these projects or components have the same basic aims, i.e. to increase the supply of loanable funds for the poor and free the target group as far as possible from their dependence on the unorganized and exploitative capital market and, second, to generate productive activities that will raise the incomes and living standards of the target group. To the extent that such activities help to raise productivity, they also generate additional employment opportunities. Preliminary evaluation of IFAD's projects suggests that these goals are being attained, particularly in Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh.

Lessons for Project Design

One of the most important lessons in IFAD's experience is that projects should not be designed only around physical elements like land and water, but basically around people. Once a specific target group has been identified and their needs and constraints have been carefully analyzed, the approach to project design and particularly the sequence and importance of various activities included in a project can become more meaningful from their point of view.

Another important prerequisite in reaching the poor is the need to encourage them to organize themselves. The nature and extent of such organization will depend mainly on the local situation but small farmers and landless workers cannot often derive adequate benefits from development activities. Ways and means must be found to organize them into self-managed participatory institutions, thereby enabling them to receive credit and technology, to market and process their output and to improve their living conditions.

Keeping these two considerations in mind, IFAD has been following a deliberate policy to lessen dependence on foreign consultants in the project it supports and to, the extent possible, minimize the number if staff needed for project implementation. Indeed, very few governments in low income developing countries can afford the recurrent costs of over-sophisticated and elaborate projects, once the project has been completed and external resources are no longer available to finance the cost of project management or maintenance of facilities.

Reaching the poor through development projects will continue to remain a difficult and challenging task. But in countries in which the governments themselves are willing to address the problems of rural poverty, there is considerate scope for enlarging the productive base of the rural poor and for developing new technologies, institutions and organizational systems for their benefit. And that may be where the lasting solution of the world hunger problem lies.

CADS COMMUNAL FARMING SYSTEM (CFS) APPROACH IN AGRICULTURAL SECTOR DEVELOPMENT REHABILITATION, CONSOLIDATION AND EXPANSION

Executive Summary

The agriculture sector has been one of the viable sectors in the country that has benefited a lot of people through individual initiatives. It has benefited medium to small scale farmers, and most are subsistence producers. Food crops produced include rice, cassava, yam, sweet potatoes and vegetables.

CADS Sierra Leone has been very supportive in providing needed assistance to these farmers to improve their productivity and economic development. In 1996 the center's research and development department conducted a Needs Assessment exercise trying to find ways to develop a more viable agricultural sector development scheme that would enhance farmers productivity as well as helping the center toward financial independence, more so supporting its extension work that is capable of helping more and more small and medium scale farmers.

The Communal Farming Systems (CFS) strategy was recommended and by 1997/98 planting season this unique system was proven to be a workable agricultural strategy for sustainable rural community development. Notwithstanding the violent incursions by the RUF in January and July 1998 that brought tremendous loss to the pilot scheme, the CFS approach was proven to be workable. Most participating farmers who were participating partners of CADS in implementing the CFS strategy had to abandon their villages and farms. The center's offices were looted and vandalized and seeds, equipment, food for work in storage were also looted and/or destroyed. Total loss was estimated at Le23,00,000. The communal farming system scheme was thus badly affected, but we were able to prove the system to be viable by results evaluated from four (4) participating farming communities which were not directly affected by rebel activities. The villages were able to harvest their crops and participating farmers derived their percentage and CADS also derived its percentage from the harvested crops. The CFS system proved very successful in all the four communities not affected by direct rebel activities.

The rehabilitation, consolidation and expansion of the CFS scheme therefore intends to build on the experiences of this proven agricultural development strategy for sustainable rural community development. The general objective of the project is to broaden the economic base of the farming communities in Koya and York Rural. Priority will be given to the rehabilitation and consolidation of the CFS program. The program will also encourage women to actively participate in the project through exclusively managed women farming associations. The project will be coordinated by CADS with evaluation from the funding agency and extension services of the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

The project is estimated at $68,000, project funding expected to come from donors. Direct administrative expenses of the project not included in this estimated amount as the center commands the ability to pay its administrative and field staff at all times.

Background:

Sierra Leone is fundamentally an agro-rural nation state. But the agricultural sector, in particular, the food and cash crop sub-sector, has performed poorly over the past decade, and the first priority for economic growth in Sierra Leone is to put agriculture moving again.

The sector's poor performance has resulted from serious policy distortions, enfeebled sector institutions, deteriorating infrastructure, acute shortages of essential inputs, falling international prices for the main export commodities, and more recently disruption of farm production by war disturbances. The rural economy is now near standstill. But the agricultural resource base is rich, large tracts of arable land remain uncultivated, and the prospects are good for raising yields on small holder farms and creating economic surpluses over and above their subsistent needs.

The primary objectives of the agricultural strategy (the communal farming System) recommended by CADS are to promote sustained growth of agricultural output, food security and the reduction of poverty. The core of the strategy is facilitating the transition from shifting to settled agriculture which is essential to deal with all other problems in agriculture and management of the country's natural resources. In this transition, lowlands and uplands must be developed together. The primary focus should be on rice, the main staple, but a strong development program is also needed for other crops especially cassava and sweet potato for which improved varieties have been developed, and vegetables.

Just as the emphasis on rice must be supported by strong efforts to develop other food crops, the emphasis on food must go hand in hand with rehabilitation and diversification of agricultural production for export. Each is needed to support the others. As the lowlands are intensified the upland areas should be increasingly planted to suitable economic tree crops. Such a program, based on small holders to develop the lowlands and the upland together, would also bring net environmental benefits, by taking pressure off shifting cultivation in the uplands, and accelerating transition to intensive, settled agriculture.

It is critical to improve the productivity of, and returns to, farm labor. Increased food production will help to hold down the costs of labor in order to keep domestic agricultural production capabilities imports, and make it easier to provide the incentives needed for labor use to increase in agriculture in the short run. Increased food production, together with additional employment it will support, will also address directly the food security concerns of those whose incomes are too small to allow them adequate nutrition. A common thread running through the strategy is development of the private sector, though empowerment of farmers, encouragement of farmer associations, and establishing a policy and regulatory climate conducive to private sector marketing of inputs and outputs, processing, transportation and exporting.

The Communal Farming System (CFS) Strategy in Agricultural Sector Development.

Project Rationale and Justification:

There are reportedly 400,000 farm families in Sierra Leone (about 60% of the population). From these families, among others, an estimated 120,000 labor in diamond and other mining enterprises are drawn. The average life expectancy of 42 years is among the lowest in the world, and may have declined somewhat during the past decade. The combination of health and nutrition problems which result in a very low life expectancy ensures high ratios of dependents working adults. There is also a rapid rate of urbanization arising from lack of general economic opportunities in rural areas and possibly the lure of cheaper food in Freetown. All these factors taken together have raised the age rates needed to obtain labor for agriculture.

The CFS agricultural development strategy which benefited 17 rural communities in the Koya and York Rural in 1997/98 planting season, is therefore trying to emphasize ways of increasing the productivity of labor employed in agriculture, making agriculture more economically viable as well as making rural communities more habitable. The center observed during its 1996 Needs Assessment exercise that farmers have a very serious problem in terms of access to rice and vegetable seeds, farm tools and fertilizers which for a long time have affected the potential for expanded agricultural production.

The CFS agricultural development strategy was thus carefully designed to address the problem of farmers access to farm inputs. The CFS approach is a joint venture scheme between CADS and its membership farming associations. The system is offering full time cooperation with farming associations. The rationale for the strategy is the center's responsibility of providing its farming associations with all the tangibles they need to improve the productivity of, and returns to farm labor. These tangibles refer to farm inputs - seeds, tools and fertilizers and food-for-work which have a money value to access which most farmers could not afford.

CADS, through the CFS agricultural development strategy provides these inputs to its membership farming associations. The system itself demands village communities to form Communal Farming Associations comprising of individual small farmers who join these associations, headed by the village chiefs and/or elders. The reason for these farm associations is to make it easy for the center to deal with small farmers in the various village communities through the farming associations themselves.

The center's CFS strategy therefore provides for the center to work directly with the farming associations, entering into a CFS joint venture agreement which dictates the center providing farm inputs to small farmers in the various rural communities of Koya and York districts, through the farm associations, in return for the small farmers who are members of the communal farming associations to provide the land and labor.

The CFS strategy itself encourages farmers independence. The center works through farming associations headed by the community chiefs and/elders, and this provides the independence for village communities to work among themselves which makes the system itself very effective. The Chairman or chairlady of the various farming associations in the Koya and York Rural receive the farm inputs provided by CADS as dictated by the CFS joint venture and they distribute these inputs to their small farmer subjects only when they have verified their small farmer subjects have secured farm lands and have the labor to carry out the work. As such the small farmers are subcontracted by their farming associations.

In general, the majority of small holders operate under customary land tenure laws in these rural communities which, among other things, permits and recognizes the rights of individual families to access community lands. These rights, covering allocation and usage are granted through tribal custodians of chiefs and elders, and remain valid so long as the land is tended.

The bottom line of the CFS agricultural development strategy is the sharing of harvested proceeds. According to the system, 45% of proceeds from harvested produce is received by each participating farmers.

It is the responsibility of CADS also as an entrepreneurship development and business promotion nonprofit to helping participating farmers with the 45% harvested proceeds to start or develop their own post harvest businesses. CADS provides basic business training in sessions held in each farming community. CADS will not just stop at having these farmers, future programs include monitoring through periodic visits to the farmers in post harvest businesses in order to ensure they maintain basic records, providing follow up training as necessary, and assist these farming enterprises in solving problems or in securing additional resources where possible.

15% from each participating farmers goes to the farming association. CADS ensures that the 15% received by the communal farming association from participating farmers are accordingly utilized by way of funding community projects like supporting health centers, provision of educational materials to disadvantaged rural school going children, feeder roads construction, and/or maintenance and micro loan financing of post harvest income generation activities like soap making, gara tye dyeing, blacksmithy, "Lumor" Public Market Trading, etc.

CADS is receiving 30% from harvested proceeds to be utilized in related administrative and extension services costs. CADS has a vision to be financially self sustainable in due course. The 30% is therefore a necessary derivation from the CFS joint venture to strengthen CADS in order to be able to independently pursue projects in future without having to suffer the usual delays and rigorous donor support procedures the center's continues to experience.

And there is the 10% from each participating farmer's harvested proceeds CADS and the various farming associations jointly put aside. Each community association jointly maintain a bank account with CADS to save the 10% for the repayment of any loans taken during the implementation of the project . If there are no loans at all to repay, these savings obviously go back to the communities by contributing the 10% to a revolving fund maintained by each community association to further help finance post harvest income generation activities in their local communities. From this fund, small amounts of money are systematically disbursed to participating communal farmers. This surely makes the difference in their capacities to start ad sustain individual productive and much needed post harvest businesses.

Organization and Management:

The CFS agricultural development project will be organized and managed by the center's agricultural department headed by its Agricultural Projects Coordinator with a field staff of at least sixteen (16) workers.

Project Costs:

Total project cost is estimated at $68,000 consisting of the following:

Seeds:
Fertilizers:
Farm Tools:
Food-for-Work:
Project Funding:

A grant or soft loan of $68,000 is sought. CADS will pay 100% for all direct administrative costs. The entire cost for the rehabilitation, consolidation and expansion of the CFS agricultural development strategy in the Koya and York Rural is expected to come from the international donor grant and/or soft loan.

Conclusion:

That Sierra Leone's socio-economic situation is dismal cannot be over-emphasized. Facilitating the creation of economic opportunities that will go across the board more particularly, for the poor, destitute small scale rural farmers and entrepreneurs, will create the required enabling environment.

Major support will therefore be required from benevolent international grant making institutions, or from the generous contributions of the center's general membership.

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