As the world continues to battles with Covid-19 pandemic especially the second wave, government of developing countries like Sierra Leone continue to struggle in ensuring that, key food commodities are available and affordable for their citizens. Part of the government of Sierra Leone’s effort to reduce the impact of the global crisis especially on the staple food which is mainly imported was to introduce the Quick Action Agricultural Emergency Response Program (QAAERP) which was one of the five pillars of the government initiative to reduce the impact of the pandemic. This pillar which was enshrined into the activities of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) was mainly adopted to boost local food production. The Agricultural Value Chain Development Project (AVDP), a project under the Ministry Of Agriculture funded by International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), diverted some of it fund to support MAF on fulfilling on the QAAERP mandate. In the wake of the second wave, the project has used part of the said fund to also support farmers with sanitation materials so as to protect them from the pandemic while engaging on cultivation of the inputs earlier distributed by the project (seed rice, cassava cuttings, sweet potato vines and tools).

According to the Project Manager, Abdulrahman Bob Conteh, the sanitation materials which include veronica buckets, hand sanitizers, disinfectants, liquid soaps, thermometer etc. is to ensuring that farmers keep themselves and their community members so as to break the chain of transmission of the virus and to help government build more resilient and tolerant communities in ending the pandemic. The AVDP is not just helping to increase on the production level of our farmers, but we want to ensure that the health and nutritional wellbeing of farmers is also enhanced thus farmers cannot work if they are not healthy.

The Senior Gender, Youth Targeting officer of the AVDP, Borteh Y.P Massaquoi while handing over the sanitation to helebu community in pujehun district said, farmers are the main actors in production of food we consumed every day, and thus the support was to strengthen their resilient towards combatting the virus and offer them confidence to embark on massive production amid the pandemic. She also encourage them to follow all the precautionary measures prescribe by the government and health authorities like social distancing, hand washing etc. even when they are working in team.

Receiving on behalf of farmers, Mariama kallon, youth contractor in pelewahun community, Moyamba district said they are overwhelmed with the project support and she expressed gratitude to the government through the project for thinking about their health and promised that the will always mask up and follow all the health measures even when they are on their farms so as to stop the pandemic not to enter into their communities.