By Alusine Sesay
A large majority (78 percent) of Sierra Leone’s population is food insecure and one in five households (20 percent) are severely food insecure, according to a new report by the World Food Programme (WFP).
WFP Sierra Leone Country Office: “Food Security Monitoring System Report” which was published on April 19, 2023, shows that despite this, the Global Acute Malnutrition rate in children under 5 (by MUAC) remains low and improved from 5 percent in August to 3 percent in February. There are district variations with Karene, Falaba and Western Area urban at 5-6 percent.
The report indicates that 66 percent of households reported spending more than 75 percent of their total expenditure on food and when the shares of household that spend over half of their expenditure on food summed up the results add up to 95 percent of Sierra Leonean households.
The proportion of households that adopted emergency coping strategies was 23 percent in the latest round of FSMS which is a 14 percentage points increase from 9 percent in January 2022.
According to February 2023 survey results, 21 percent of the Sierra Leonean households have a poor food consumption score, which is a 6 percentage points deterioration from the 15 percent reported during the last post-harvest period in January 2022.
Most households cannot afford a healthy diet which has implications on their health and nutritional status in the long run, according to the report.
Larger household size and agriculture as a source of income were often the common characteristic of households with high levels of food insecurity.
The report shows that the Districts of Falaba, Koinadugu, Moyamba and Pujehun have highest levels of vulnerability across the majority of the indicators.
Recommendations
Food Security Monitoring System Report shows that, considering the level of food insecurity levels due to lack of access to nutritious food because of the numerous economic vulnerabilities such as high food prices, high food inflation and the continuous depreciation of the local currency coupled with the root causes, low productivity of rural households involved in agriculture and the poor agricultural practices will further exacerbate the situation if the following recommendations are and not addressed:
Expand shock responsive social protection programmes and revise transfer values to be in line with current costs of Minimum Essential Needs; Provide emergency assistance to most vulnerable households to support food and nutritional intake; Increase investment in agriculture, directed at small holder level, by providing credit facility in the form of farming inputs such as improved seeds, chemical fertilisers, and improved farm tools; Expand soil and water conservation farming techniques; soil testing; market linkages of smallholder farmers to improve access to improved seeds and organic fertilizer; Emphasis on climate smart agriculture and encouraged smallholder farmers to embark on perennial farming and diversify crops; and Increased investment in reducing post-harvest losses and affordable value-added agricultural technics.