Could you give us a brief overview of the agricultural sector?
Coming out of a crisis as we have had over the past eight to ten years, most of the infrastructure that had supported agriculture in the past has been destroyed. Notwithstanding, there has been a major intervention since the past three years after the elections, specifically for the rubber sector. The rubber sector happened to be the most important sector in terms of export earnings. We have been associated with the rubber program and development for the past 70 years, starting in 1923 when Firestone first made the decision to come to Liberia. It was hoped at the time that the price of rubber would continue to be stable for a long period of time. In a general way most of the small farmers who had land planted rubber. So, in terms of acreage, we have the largest cultivation of rubber; pre-war we had about 400,000 acres of rubber that includes concession rubber, representing 40 to 45% and the remaining 55% small holders' rubber. Liberia has benefited from the rubber industry in more ways than one; it has provided job opportunities; it has provided income-earning opportunities for small people who had land and had nothing to do with the land. We are happy to note that all the pre-war rubber concessions are now back and functioning. Except for the dismal prices of rubber for the past three to four years, they are all working, but we have to replant most of the rubber because over 60% of the rubber is old rubber which has overgrown their economic life. Fortunately, Firestone, LAC, Guthrie, Salala Rubber Corporation are all starting to establish their nurseries and to rehabilitate them, so as to provide new and improved planting materials to small farmers, as well as material to replant their own farms.
There is a decision right now to establish a standard basic agreement for concessionaires that will be ratified so that any concession would need to meet similar requirements. We concluded the Firestone concession a year ago. It is up for ratification, and once that is done, all other concessions would have to follow suit.
We are not making any effort at finished products in terms of rubber which is shipped semi-processed … during the crisis most of the time it was shipped raw, unprocessed, but next year, we intend to stop the shipping of unprocessed rubber because the quality is lower; it gets impacted negatively as far as the international prices are concerned.
Has Firestone agreed to set up a processing plant?
No. No one has agreed to set up a processing plant, but in the standard basic agreement we have for the rubber concessions, it is stipulated that, if and when, an entity came in and got approval to establish a processing facility, that Firestone and any other concession would provide raw materials at the market price for that entity to process and make some finished products, because our vision is value added.
Let me indicate that our future is rubber and that we have a vision to expand our rubber to one million acres. Guthrie, a Malaysian group that has been here over 40 years, has come back and has almost completed its concession agreement. They hope to do pretty close to 300,000 acres, which will be nearly 1/3 of our vision. All the other concessions are hoping to expand. We expect in the next 20 to 24 years to get closer to that vision of one million acres of quality rubber wherein manufacturing plants can be established to add value in terms of finished products.
Going on to other income generating areas, we have very good soil, climate and water requirements in terms of growing coffee and cocoa. We have not done as much in those areas as we should have, but certainly the ten years prior to the war, we had expanded with support from the World Bank programs. We had about four area development programs in Lofa, the largest county in this country, Bong, Nimba and the southeastern region where tree crop production was been emphasized. I think this has to continue. So, we probably hold as a vision, again, that within the next generation or two, we can probably grow a million or two million acres in coffee and cocoa. This is necessary in terms of the environmental elements. Growing tree crops on the upland will reduce the need to do shifting and burning agriculture done by our small subsistence farmers. Their intervention with the soil really hurts the environment because they are moving from one space to another every year, due to the fertility condition. Our rains are very torrential, and so once you can't maintain crop cover you probably have the torrential rains wash away the topsoil and thereby render the soil inherently infertile and unable to sustain crops anymore. By growing economic tree crops - rubber, cocoa, coffee or palm oil - you can expect to maintain crop cover, sustain the environment, manage it efficiently, and yet be able to earn some income.
We understand that logging companies have reversed the environmental programs?
We are still very, very lucky that we still have more than 45-50% of whatever is left in this general area of the rain forest. We have not exploited ours as the other countries had to do. Notwithstanding, we have to be very cautious to implement and put into place sustainable management methods where you have a limitation as to how much you can do in a given year. Beyond going to extract wood that has to be extracted because it is not going to be good to anyone because it has outgrown its stage and has to be extracted to let new trees come up. We also have to establish national parks and reserves. These reserves and national parks would help to maintain our diversity especially as it relates to enhancing and maintaining our bio-diversity and also continue to provide for participation and contribution towards reversing all the other kinds of global warming, climate change and other elements that are now prominent in the news. So, logging is going to be important in Liberia continuously because our economy depended very heavily on the iron ore sector for the past 50 - 60 years. The iron ore is no more… that is not a renewable element anyway, so now we have to go back to agriculture and forestry.
We have to replenish, maintain our forest, utilize sustainable management methods in terms of extraction and exploitation … do all levels of primary, secondary and tertiary species… add value by sawing the wood in country, exporting only sawn timbers instead of round logs, reforestation programs at community levels in the urban areas as well as in the concession areas would be very relevant. Even within the concession areas agro-forestry to utilize land to grow cocoa and coffee, rubber would be something that needs to be done.
There is the potential to look for and bring and adapt technologies in non-traditionally grown crops in Liberia because we have not utilized those possibilities to expand the export market.
Would Asian countries have a role to play in this technology transfer?
Definitely. They have the expertise, they have technology that can be adopted and they are very drawn out. The Asian technology have grown very slowly in a way, except for the application of hi-tech to those rudimentary aspects of agriculture. Fisheries also come under agriculture. We have our own assets outside… there is more than twice as large in terms of acreage than the land area. We have a very long coastline compared to the north-south measure. We have very rich waters. It has been exploited, especially over the past ten years when we were going through our own crisis here. But we are hoping that through regional efforts, efforts with the FAO and investors themselves can provide for research and protection of the marine ecology so that we can continue to exploit them in a sustainable way for a very long time. And we would be looking very keenly at the types of industrial fishing activities in terms of the diversity of nets, materials and equipment being utilized to catch fish and other marine resources. But certainly their involvement in terms of contributing towards the protection of the environment will be very high on the agenda.
Food-wise, of course we have talked a little about the forestry, fisheries, general agriculture and the economy. We need to probably talk about the food situation.
Would you say that considering the potential for cocoa and coffee of neighboring countries, Liberia should concentrate on fisheries, logging and rubber?
No. We have to look at the institutional framework as far as growing coffee and cocoa is concerned. We have concessions that are doing rubber. We have concessions that are doing logging. We have fishing agreements with people who come to do fishing. We need to now find investors who are willing to come and do concession work, acquire land to do cocoa, coffee and palm oil. Rubber, cocoa and coffee grow all over Liberia. So, we are saying that our vision is to grow one million acres of each of these important crops. We expect that within a given area we would have a major concession that would now serve as a satellite entity or the core entity from which technology transfer will reach the small farmers. This satellite entity would buy the small farmers product, make some processing and add value. So we are looking forward to negating our monopoly on purchasing, cocoa and coffee that we have had in the past with the Liberia Produce Marketing Corporation.
Ivory Coast had at one stage an institution called CAISTAB to stabilize coffee prices, provide subsidies and facilitate access to equipment for small farmers. Would you be looking at a similar system?
What we had in the past was a joint venture with the EAC (East Asiatic Company) in Liberia when cocoa and coffee were first envisioned. For over 15 years, there was significant export from Liberia in terms of cocoa and coffee. The local currency was strong, so besides what we did produce, we also attracted additional cocoa and coffee from our neighboring countries. That entity worked very well until 1980. I think after the coup, the joint venture was dissolved. We think at this point in time you can establish, maybe three or four franchises, if you will, for intervening in the cocoa and coffee area. And this could be done where land could be provided these franchises and in the area where they are, perhaps, on a regional basis, they may become the entity that provides for subsidy and intervention and technical support and extension services to the small farmers who grow cocoa and coffee in terms of producing, harvesting and processing and so forth. They then can make an inquiry and request subsidy from government in terms of tax break and other incentives because they assume the responsibility to provide that level of stability within the region. And what that does then is that they would be exporting, processing and would have one supervisory board, a cocoa and coffee board, if you want, that will continue to review standards and quality… that will continue to ensure that the price the farmers do get is consistent with the dynamics of the international market system. But certainly the cocoa and coffee program in this country has been with the small farmers. We want to go beyond this smallholder farms to establish medium scale and large scale farms. And then those small farms that don't have the ability to export, process to maintain quality and standard can then sell their products to an entity that has the comparative advantage and expertise in processing to add value so their overhead based on their efficiency would be reduced. That's for the cocoa and coffee. Similar process with oil palm. We would like to see small farmers working in tandem with larger entities.
| Such as Firestone working in collaboration with small farmers in the rubber industry?
Yes. Firestone has done very well with rubber. LAC has done very well as well. All the small farmers in the LAC area sell their rubber to LAC. All the small farmers in the Firestone area sell their rubber to Firestone. Small farmers in the Guthrie area also sell to that company. We want to see a similar process repeated even if it starts at the miniature scale but for the other crops/commodities area.
What measures have been implemented to avoid a number of commodities to go beyond the borders?
You know, the only measure that negates commodity going beyond borders is the type of incentives the farmers get… your price… if you have access roads and this is one fact I mentioned earlier when I talked about infrastructures, about roads, markets. If you have a market system that is structured with very good road network, it cuts down transport cost and it means the value to the farmer is maintained. So people will take their cocoa and coffee to where the price is highest.
The incentive here is to have a structured system where you provide inputs at cost, you reduce cost of production which then is felt in the additional increase of price for the small farmer. And they will sell to you and bring to you at all times.
One of the priorities of this government has been to make the country self-sufficient. What measures have been implemented in that respect, and particularly as far as rice production is concerned?
The government has as one of its five general areas on its platform. Agriculture is very key to anything that happens in this country for the mere fact that over 70% of our people are involved in that sector, 60% of those people being women. Through self-sufficiency, our diet has basically been rice. That is our staple. We want to think about that because of the crisis people were forced to migrate to other countries and they have come back with new taste and so the diet has changed. During the war years when we did not have rice as much as we used to have it, a lot of people found taste in utilizing root tubers and plantains. So cassava, sweet potatoes, yams, eddoes have become a major input into our diet nowadays such that if you went to restaurants now you have on the menu a lot of the other starches and not just rice. Food self-sufficiency can be attained only if you provide the incentives for the people to grow it… if I cannot sell what I grow for more than I produced it for, then I will grow it to consume, and that's it. To make excess for non-producers who are just consumers it means that I'll need to have the incentives to do more.
To what extent can you rely on Foreign Direct Investment for developing an agro- based industry?
This population is still small and foreign investment will not come to produce for this small population. Where we have export earning potential like cassava, which is a high export-earning crop, we can expand our crop production. We can do that in plantain and other vegetable, spices and food crops of course; we have to have access to the international world in terms of transport and communication.
But certainly with regards to food security, we think that can be attained by providing incentives at lower cost; providing the type of framework that allows for marketing; providing for the reduction of post harvest losses through processing and preservation for our own use and establishing the basis of priority standards that will take our raw materials, when value is added, to be exported, accessing external markets and so roads are important in this regard to put us closer to attaining food security.
Diversification in our diet, utilizing different sources of food items… cassava, yams, potatoes, bananas, plantain and so forth will get us there even quicker.
Establish a framework for recuperation and storage. So that when things are processed we don't lose so much.
Post-harvest losses would move us further down the line of food security. We don't have much coming into this country in terms of relief food right now. More than 60% of what we eat in this country is grown right here. You have to recognize that a lot of people live beyond the dollar-a-day level, so they are not going to be able to buy imported items, they just can't. So they are depending on what they grow. For the urban center, the 10% of the people who can afford to buy imported items they basically live in enclaves. But more and more, the rural sector needs to begin to provide for the urban enclaves to reduce the importation. We would hope that we utilize our endowments to export. So, in terms of food security, access roads, markets, incentives in terms of lesser duties on cutlasses and small machines that would need to go into the processing sector, are some of the issues we have to look into. Little less duties on trucks that would have to move the commodities down to the markets as well as on input to production, economic empowerment, providing an enabling environment, reducing the taxes and duties on these sort of activities…these are some of the measures which should lead us to attain food security.
How would you rate your co-operation with foreign international organizations such as the FAO, the EU and NGOs?
Like everywhere in the world, most of the international systems are in places where they think that you have crisis. All the NGOs, international community I think they have reduced their support by maybe 85 to 90% since elections three years ago. Local NGOs that had been empowered during the crisis now know how to operate their own community-based groups. But they have always needed some intervention from outside; they don't have that any more. They are becoming a dying breed. The international NGOs that are here also have reduced their support and their presence significantly. As people have gone back to their homesteads and they have gone back and taken up their cutlasses and hoes to produce some more, they are now taking up their responsibilities. I don't think the international community wants to be here to continue to support or subsidize this slow process perpetually and we don't want them to. We want to provide an atmosphere where you can bring in your capital; we can provide you some land and you can take the land, make capital and make the best use of it - grow something that you can export, provide employment and contribute to the social establishment in terms of Medicare and education - and that's the way we want partnership in terms of economic activity. It is more important than handing down interventions with relief items which are non-sustainable. Generally the international community has looked at Liberia with I believe some level of fatigue. Beyond the fatigue I think there's more important area of need. Africa, compared to other parts of the world, is very high on the agenda, except when you have a crisis situation. It seems that we are more relevant during crisis and immediate post crisis, but we are not doing much to prevent crisis; that's where you will spend 10% of what you will spend during crisis instead of ensuring that you don't have crisis. And if the international community can look at Liberia and say well you have been through a crisis like any other country they know of, we are going there with a master plan, a rehabilitation and reconstruction plan, for a given period of time and they stuck to that reconstruction and rehabilitation plan, they will make a difference. When Europe was no more they had a Marshall plan and so they have a plan for Kosovo or wherever…
How do you rate the level of involvement of Asian institutions in Liberia and where do you foresee further development?
Only in agriculture can we envision significant contributions that can be made based on the historical expertise and tendencies of the Asian world. Their evolution was in stages; it didn't just come to the limelight. We, in Liberia, prior to this crisis, did not have that much linkage or interaction with the Asian world. So we are very new on the block as far as linkages with the Asian world are concerned. Malaysia, India can make some very, very good examples where small-scale industries have made a difference. Where structured systems with directed policies have made a difference. Taiwan- Republic of China… we dilly-dally with both Chinas over the past 50 years. Recently, we have been provided a proposal from the Taiwanese Tuna Association who would like to contemplate an agreement in time to look at the Tuna industry in the fishing area. There's an Oriental Timber Company that's doing some work here in timber. Liberia has never had high company in logging that would come and overwhelm citizens. Now we have and so everyone is saying "wow, it looks like they are going to cut down all our forest". However, in many countries they had similar interventions. We have to now put into motion as per our laws that when you do this cut from here, you are going to make amends in terms of reforestation, and they are beginning to do so. I think Asian countries are the future for Liberia. It's a look at technical cooperation from developing countries or technical cooperation from second world countries. I am of the vision that you have to leaving from walking to a bike, from the bicycle to a motorbike and then to a small car and then you ride the Lexus sometime when you acquire the understanding of how to maintain a Lexus. So there is solar energy requirement… solar possibility that you can get from India and the other countries to help with our rural industries… for rural electrification. We can benefit from the type of cooperative system where small farmers are grouped. From Taiwan they have done so well over the past 30 years they have gone to a first world country and they have got some billion dollars in reserves - minimum. And we are 200 years old much larger, fairly small population. We need to train and educate our people to access information to be able to utilize the information to apply the information and technology to our endowments in this country to make a difference. Agriculture happens to be the only area in which you can intervene, either in logging, fisheries and concession crop production in cocoa, coffee, oil palm or any other non-traditional crops. We grow cashews industry; we grow peanuts here but we don't have that industry here, we grow pineapples here and our pineapples are amongst the best you can find, but we don't have a pineapple industry. We eat what we can eat. We let the rest rots. We have to now look at the export markets where do you find the export market? Get the investment here first. Then they can look at expanding the pineapple plantation, expand the cashew plantation, expanding the plantain for spice and so forth, because out there, there are external markets to access.
What message would you address to the half million readers of Far Eastern Economic Review?
Agriculture is the business as far as I see it. We hope that people who would wait realize that we have land and we have laws that would allow you to acquire the land through concession to do business. Firestone came and asked for one million acres 70 years ago and it was approved. They have done maybe about 100,000 but they asked for one million. Some people have come and asked for 600,000 acres, a Malaysian group. They have been given approval so you can do business and take your money out of the country. You can organize businesses here that are sole proprietorship owning anything. So, we can expect that more and more people can have knowledge and be aware of opportunities in this country and make this a second home. As regards focus, our focus would be expanding each of the respective commodities areas to about a million acres of production area. |
MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE