By Richard D. Baysah, LINA Margbi County Correspondent
KAKATA, April 12 (LINA) – A local and renowned Liberian Businessman in Margibi County has vowed to fully support the government’s ARREST Agenda for Inclusive Development, (AAID).
Mr. James K. Nyumah said the government cannot succeed in its national developmental initiative in the absence and total involvement of its citizens.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with the Liberia News Agency- LINA on April 8, 2025, in Kakata, Margibi County Mr. Nyumah said with agriculture being the very first on the government’s national developmental drive, it is a clear indication that all hands must be on deck to ensure the success of the program across the country.
He indicated that Liberia has vast swamps, (low land) very rich for the production of crops, adding that it can be used to feed the entire country when fully developed thereby cutting hugely on the government’s reliance on the importation of rice from other countries.
“This can only be realized when the national government through the Ministry of Agriculture makes a push by supporting local farmers in the country so that they can get involved with the growing of low land rice which eventually lowers the high annual cost of rice importation from outside the country,” he said.
“How can we claim to have rice as our national staple and yet we cannot produce rice enough to feed ourselves?” he asked.
“India, China, Pakistan and other Asian countries that are highly populated are able to produce rice in excess and export it to us and with these big swamps all over this country, if the Liberian Government put money in it, the next two to four years Liberia will be a major rice producing country in the world”, he revealed.
Nyumah said if the government can put in place strategies to scout potential rice farmers like him and few others and given loans for low land rice production, “Liberians will start to eat our own locally grown rice and do away with the imported ones.”
“President Joseph Nyumah Boakai is the only President that has had it all in agriculture and if and only if he focuses mainly on lowland rice production in the country, the Liberian people will hail him as the “rice czar”, he maintained.
He then called on the government to put in place strategies and begin the implementation of programs that will lead full scale lowland rice production in Liberia as the closure of USAID technical support in the agricultural sector will have a very serious negative impact Liberia’s food security in the country.