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Plant Health Clinics for Sierra Leone

Published by:
Publication date
23/06/2008
Language:
English
Type of Publication:
Studies
Focus Region:
Sub-Saharan Africa
Focus Topic:
Health & Diseases
Capacity Development
Type of Risk:
Biological & environmental
Commodity:
Crops
Source
http://www.dfid.gov.uk/r4d/PDF/Outputs/Misc_Crop/GPC_Sierra_Leone_report_June08_final.pdf
Author
Harling, R.

This report describes the setting up of plant clinics in each of the 13 administrative districts across Sierra Leone, and the subsequent provision of training for the new plant doctors who were to operate the clinics. The trainees also gained information on how CABI, and its partners and collaborators, might further assist the efforts in rebuilding and developing agriculture after the end of the civil war in 2002. Poor soil fertility, unavailability of fertilizers and pesticides, as well as the cash for farmers to buy them, and poor infrastructure (roads, lack of transport and cold stores) are the major constraints to agriculture in this country. Recommendations for ways to build upon the new clinics and for collaborative work with farmers’ field schools, which are well established in Sierra Leone, are made in the final section of the report.