Grand Kru County – Farmers of various foodstuffs in Grand Kru County, in southeastern Liberia, are refusing seed crops and fertilizer offered by the Government of Liberia to end hunger in this part of Liberia.
The farmers’ action is based on sale of these farm implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture’s Coordination Office in Grand Kru County.
“I won’t pay any money for a thing the government had told us would be free,” Mr. Ben P. Sieh, a farmer based in Zoloken, vowed to another farmer who had given him information from the MOA County’s Coordinator’s office in Barclayville. “I’m a poor farmer. I don’t have money.”
The relayed message from Mr. Sieh’s farming colleague, Mr. Peter Jeh, is that all farmers should go to Barclayville, Grand Kru County’s capital, to collect their crop seeds and fertilizers they registered for in 2016.
“But they are asking each farmer to bring money along with his or her registration identification card,” Mr. Jeh said to his colleague.
The money in question was in two categories for two different farming points.
The first category money was five United States dollars or five hundred Liberian dollars; the second category was ten United States dollars or one thousand Liberian dollars.
“The five US dollars should be paid for 10kg of seed crops and fertilizer for farming activity on upland or hard ground; the ten US dollars is for the same measurement of seed crops and fertilizer for farming on low land or swampy place,” farmer Peter Jeh explained to me in an interview on the report in Zoloken on June 10, and showed me his registration identification card with A000260921.
On knowledge of my profession, farmer Ben P. Sieh invited me to his house (picture used for this story) to show me his registration card (with ID number A000162871) as proof of his name being in the MoA’s data for Grand Kru County’s list to-be beneficiaries for seed crops and fertilizers.
Parts of the information on the card reads: “Republic of Liberia” and “Small Holder Agricultural Productivity Enhancement & Commercialization (SAPEC) Project”.
“Those who registered us didn’t write my names on the card,” Mr. Sieh answered my question of absence of his name on the card he presented to me to ascertain his claim.
“Look at my house,” he directed my attention to his residential structure (built with mud wall and thatch roof) gradually collapsing due to punches of torrential rains in this forest-enclosed part of Liberia. “Where a poor farmer like me get five US dollars to buy seed crops and fertilizers from the government that should help poor farmers like me?” he said.
Peter Jeh’s ID card doesn’t have his name, too. Ben P. Sieh and Peter Jeh cultivate rice and corn each.
Farmer Peter Jeh got the information through the Commissioner of the Wedabo-Grand Cess the Commissioner of the Wedabo-Grand Cess District, Mr. Konmana Nyanneh, Sr.
“The County’s Superintendent, Madam Elizabeth Dempster, called me on June 7 and asked me come to Barclayville to take delivery of seed crops and fertilizer for each Town’s farmers’ who registered in 2016 for these agricultural implements,” Commissioner Nyanneh, based in Zoloken, informed me in his office on June 10. “
She said, the Ministry of Agriculture people told her the crop seeds had spent three weeks in their warehouse but the farmers were not coming out to collect them house,” he quoted the Superintendent.
“I relinquished the collection task to the general Town Chief to each time.”
Information about presence of the farm implements had been announced on the Community’s radio station (Voice of Grand Kru) two weeks prior to the Superintendent called, Commissioner Nyanneh, Sr. explained.
Superintendent Dempster’s relay of the MOA County’s Coordinator’s message is construed by some farmers as conniving with MoA’s County office on extorting money from farmers for what they consider ‘free gifts’ from the national government.
I couldn’t reach MOA Grand Kru County Coordinator, Mr. Benjamin Bedell, for comment on the matter.
County Superintendent Dempster told me in an on-phone interview on the matter on June 11 he lost his mobile phone, so would not be reached until he retrieved his lost SIM from LonestarCell MTN.
My effort to trace the MoA man on June 12 at a Church (Jireh International Ministries) he heads didn’t materialize and he didn’t contact me through my contact numbers I left for him with a short note about my mission at the Church.
Giving unofficial information on the government’s agricultural offers, Superintendent Dempster told me that “more than ten thousand farmer registered for the farm implements, but the quantity sent could cover only two thousand farmers, and that only twenty farmers have collected their crop seeds and fertilizers.”
The twenty five beneficiary farmers, my investigation revealed later, were persons who paid the money the MoA County officer were requesting.
Reacting to farmers’ perception of connivance of extortion on government’s agricultural offers, Superintendent Dempster told me: “I only relayed the message from the office the Ministry of Agriculture’s County Coordinator.
Mr. (Benjamin) Bedell came to my office and told me the seed crops and fertilizers for Grand Kru County’s farmers were here, but the farmers were not coming out to collect them,” she explained to me.
Madam Dempster admitted to relating to District Commissioner N. Konmana Nyanneh the MOA County Coordinator’s demand for the categories of money farmers Ben P. Sieh and Peter Jeh and their poor colleagues.
She, however, expressed her empathy with farmers who couldn’t go for their farm implements on financial constraint.
“These farmers are poor,” she said during the interview”
““If they can’t get five hundred dollars or one thousand dollars for farm implements, how can they get two thousand-five to three thousand dollars as the cost of transporting their bags of crop seeds and fertilizers from Barclayville to their villages?”
Farmer Peter Jeh told me in Monrovia June 25 that the MOA County office has reduced each category amount.
“They say farmers for highland farming should pay two-fifty dollars, from five hundred, and farmers who want crop seeds and fertilizers for swampy area should pay three-fifty, from one thousand dollars,” he said.
Majority of farmers in Grand Kru County are extremely poor, which is reflected on condition of their homes—like Ben Sieh’s.
Report by Samuel Dweh/ freelance journalist – 0886-618-906/[email protected]
