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VIDEO: Songs of the rice farmers of Samay

by George Fominyen | Thomson Reuters Foundation
Tuesday, 18 May 2010 10:45 GMT

SAMAY, Liberia (AlertNet) - In a village surrounded by forest to the east of the Liberian capital Monrovia, women sing as they dig rehabilitated swampland to make way for rice, the countryÂ?s staple food.

The women of Samay are part of a growing number of farming groups that are being advised by experts to turn to lowland farming to enhance crop productivity, enabling them to produce enough to be able to sell their surplus.

The aim is to help tackle food shortages in a country battered by 14 years of civil war and heavily dependent on food imports.

"We didn't usually work in swamps before but the people who have come to help say we can have three yields in one year on such plots," says Jemama Flomo, spokeswoman of the womenÂ?s farming group in the village of Samay, 200 kilometers (124 miles) from Monrovia. "We are very happy to work on the swamp because we are short of food."

Despite progressively improving food production in post-conflict Liberia and favourable agro-ecological conditions, the United Nations says agriculture productivity is still low.

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