The executive directors at the World Bank have approved a $30 million International Development Association (IDA) grant to support agricultural productivity and access to markets for smallholder farmer-agribusiness in Sierra Leone.

Development Diaries understands that the additional financing for the Smallholder Commercialisation and Agribusiness Development Project (SCADeP) will enable the project to invest in roads and bridges to improve connectivity, thereby providing access to more remote areas of high agricultural production.

In a press release by the bank, they said, ‘The additional financing is strengthening productive business linkages between farmers and selected agribusiness firms and other commodity off-takers. It builds on the results achieved by the project and will scale up the provision of improved seeds and fertilisers to increase farmers’ productivity.

‘The SCADePproject has supported the rehabilitation and maintenance of 166 km of feeder roads and the construction of 192 culverts and six bridges, thereby providing year-round access to farms, markets, schools, and health centres for 77 communities in nine districts across the country’.

The Country Manager for Sierra Leone at World Bank, Gayle Martin, said, ‘The World Bank is focusing its interventions toward helping the agricultural sector recover quickly from the effects of Covid-19 and contribute toward higher medium- to long-term agricultural growth required to reduce poverty among smallholder farmers and promote inclusive growth. This project is aligned with the economic diversification and growth agenda of the government’.

It is understood that smallholder farmers are the drivers of many economies and play an important role in promoting livelihoods and food security amongst the rural poor.

Source: SL Concord Times

Photo source: Nick Richie