Siera Grass-roots Agency (SIGA)

cassavafarm.jpg

Home
About SIGA
Advisory Board Members
History and Acknowledgements
Child Labor and Children Education
Employment Promotion for Youths
Forestry and the Environment
Cassava Processing and Marketing to Mitigate Child Labour
Contact

SIGA is implementing a cassava production, processing and marketing project with community groups and associations in the Yoni Chiefdom, Tonkolili District, central Sierra Leone. This project is primarily designed to help fight poverty which happens to be the main cause of child labour in Sierra Leone.

According to the UN Human Development Report (2020) the country is 70.3% below the national poverty line of less than 1$ per capita per day. On this basis of classification, alone, Sierra Leone, in spite of its natural wealth, is one of the poorest countries in the world. Sierra Leone has performed worse than all other countries by several other UN indicators. For example, Sierra Leone has amongst the lowest life expectancy (54.7 years); lowest GDP per capita ($1,668); highest child mortality rate; highest maternal mortality rate. These are vital statistics which are contributing to Sierra Leone being rated 182nd out of 189 countries on the UN Human Development Index (2020). At this level of performance, life can be said to be intolerable in Sierra Leone.

Approximately 80% of the rural population relies on farming for livelihood. From the statistic above, the farming practiced is still not able to lift the population out of poverty. However, a major crop that was identified that will bring about quick and sustainable turning around of the economic status in these communities is the extensive production and processing of cassava in to foods and other marketable products. Cassava is the second most important food crop in Sierra Leone and it is even now considered an economic crop because of the demand for its products such as local foods, gari, foo foo, cassava flour and starch. The demand is even increasing beyond the borders of the country. The current local way of producing and processing the cassava is time consuming and cumbersome, and not economical at all. Without mechanical cultivation and improved processing facilities farmers do not bother with large scale production of the crop at all. Cultivation of the crop is mostly small scale; because growing it in large quantities will create the problem of marketing the tubers without the facilities to processing in to more marketable and profitable products.

Cassava has a short life-cycle, 8-12 months and can be rapidly produced. In spite of the current low levels of productivity both in terms of farm size and yield, there is tremendous potential for expanded production by both small and commercial producers. Technology now exists for large-scale production, agro-processing and conversion into high valued commodities and made available on the local and international market. Thus cassava is food for the poor but by processing and marketing it can substantially raise the income of the small producers and therefore reduce poverty level in the rural households.

cassavafactory.jpg

Cassava Processing Center at Project Headquarters Peace Village Mile 91

The Yoni Cassava Initiative (YCI) Project

In 2018, SIGA started the Yoni Cassava Initiative (YCI) project in the Yoni Chiefdom Tonkolili District, north central Sierra Leone. The YCI was set with funds from donor partner organizations Bread for The World in Germany, to support the commercial cassava production activities of communities in the chiefdom.

The YCI has completed the construction and setting up of processing equipment and facilities for a factory for the processing of raw cassava in to local foodstuff Gari and Foo Foo purely for the local market. The current capacity is about two metric tons of cassava tuber in to Gari and Foo Foo per day.

The YCI entered in to partnership with the local producers including farming associations, community groups, churches and individuals in to setting up commercial cassava farms in their communities. The partners provide the land and manual labour for planting and weeding and general care and also provide security for the plantations. The YCI provides hired tractor services, improved high yielding varieties of cassava cuttings, train and supervise the farmers in planting and general care for the plantation. The partnership has established about 50 hectares with 10 farming groups in the Yoni chiefdom.

The factory has just started production of Gari and Foo Foo; all local foodstuffs. The cassava fever has taken the chiefdom over. The project partners do the harvest and YCI provide transportation for the tubers to the processing center. The YCI has trained and employed women and men from the communities who carry out the processing of the cassava tubers.

Seventy percent of the processed goes to the farming organization and the communities. Bags of processed Gari and Foo Foo is returned to the communities every week. Thirty percent of the processed cassava is retained by the YCI as in-kind processing fee for the sustenance of the processing center and staff. A key commitment made in this arrangement is for the benefitting farmers to retain some of the Gari for the provision of daily lunch for the school going children in the communities.

Nearly every farmer in the chiefdom is willing to get in to the partnership for the production of commercial cassava to take advantage of the processing facilities. Before this YCI project introduction in 2018, not much attention has been paid to the large-scale cultivation of cassava in the chiefdom.

We need help to extend cassava production an processing services to communities all over the Yoni Chiefdom.



* We need tractor services to reduce labor expenditure for the cultivation larger scale cassava farms



* We need used or new farm machineries including small tractors, trailers and implement, power tillers, for cultivation and for transportation of produce, materials and equipment.



* We need help to improve the capacity of the processing center; including used or new electric generators, electric Gari fryers, pressers, sieve etc.



* We need partners to help in the marketing of our key processed cassava products; Gar and Foo Foo

Click on link to view YCI Video

garihandover.jpg

Supply of Processed Gari to Matetie Community Farmers Association Members and Children

 
   

Email: sigasl@hotmail.com; sieragrassrootsagency@gmail.com Tel +23276603491