By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay
Sierra Leone is taking a leading role within ECOWAS to strengthen food system resilience, positioning the region to better withstand emerging global supply shocks.
At a recent meeting of ECOWAS Agriculture Ministers, the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Henry Musa Kpaka, called for deeper regional coordination to protect food systems and stabilize markets. He emphasized the importance of collective action in response to global disruptions, including the ongoing US-Iran tensions, which continue to affect supply chains and input costs.
At the regional level, Minister Kpaka is working with colleagues to formulate a robust response.
“Through ECOWAS, we are advancing a more practical and collective response; pooled procurement to strengthen our bargaining power; regional reserves and investment in local blending capacity to buffer future shocks; and joint financing instruments to crowd in private capital rather than rely on unsustainable subsidies,” Minister Kpaka stated.
The US-Iran war is having a major impact on food systems. Experts say fertilizer supply has been hit the hardest, with one third of the global Nitrogen and Nitrogen based fertilizer supply stuck in the Strait of Hormuz. The price for Nitrogen based fertilizer, Urea, has gone up by 60% since the start of the war.
Back home, the Sierra Leone Government has not waited. Food system resilience is the backbone of the Feed Salone program. The country has gone through crises like COVID-19 and the Russia-Ukraine war, which tested the resilience of the food systems in the past.
Minister Kpaka said the government is working on multiple fronts such as scaling up agricultural finance and insurance and deploying mechanization services across priority production zones.
In addition to these, the government is also “accelerating irrigation in key rice clusters to enable year-round farming; and strengthening import dependent value chains such as rice, poultry, onions, and other strategic export crops.”