Agriculture Programme: Rural Livelihoods

Our agricultural support programme began when our Sierra Leone Programmes Manager, Karim, was travelling through a rural community near his hometown of Lunsar.

In Sierra Leone’s rural communities, subsistence farming and small-scale family farming are widespread. Families and communities work tirelessly to provide for themselves and, when possible, produce a little extra to trade or sell locally.

The programme

Reseed is seeking funding for our rural livelihoods programme which supports farming communities. Through extensive community surveys, feedback from our pilot and utilising our Sierra Leonean team's local knowledge and expertise, our innovative project design encompasses three phases:

  • Phase 1: Yield booster & crop diversification

    Working directly with farmers, our agriculture officers will supply seeds and tools to increase the farmers' yields and diversify their crops. Each farmer has the opportunity to choose what they need, empowering them to make their own decisions and use their knowledge and expertise. Reseed's agriculture officer spends time embedded in the communities, supporting each farmer providing tailored advice and support. All the communities work in a community co-operative system, allowing for shared labour for planting and harvesting.

  • Reseed hosts in person composting workshops designed to tackle soil degradation and discourage the use of high cost chemical fertilisers. The workshops will be attended by ~300 farmers and they will be shown how to establish a community compost using materials they can find in their natural environment. The knowledge and learning gained is then further disseminated amongst the wider farming community and individual farmers can create and maintain their own compost over time.

  • Reseed will provide materials to help six communities establish or refurbish a community seed bank.

    For example: Reseed provides and door lock to secure an existing storage space and cement to repair holes, the community provides other materials such as sand, water and labour to complete the refurbishment.

    The farmers that received the initial yield booster and crop diversification, harvest the seeds and store them for the next planting cycle. Other members of the community can use the storage space and trade their own seeds, facilitating further diversification of crops on the land.

In April 2022, after three months of consultation with agricultural communities, we launched a pilot programme across six communities in Moyamba and Koya. The project supported five farmers in each community by providing the additional tools and seeds they needed to boost their yields. This ‘yield booster’ enabled farmers to grow extra crops that could be sold for a profit, improving their livelihoods.

By October 2022, each of these six communities also received a grant and training to develop organic compost and seed storage facilities. These initiatives helped entire communities reduce their reliance on expensive and harmful chemical fertilisers, improve crop yields, and establish seed banks for long-term sustainability.

Following success in this pilot programme, we continue to engage with and provide support to the following communities: Kerefay, Chandatta, MawullaMamanso, Masaffie and Rosarr.

Since September 2024, we have expanded the programme to six new communities: Kalangba, Masokoh, Rochain, Makel, Mafera, and Mapoli.

With the programme now reaching 12 communities across Marampa and Koya Chiefdoms, we’re committed to driving even greater change and supporting more families in building sustainable futures.

The team

Mohamed, Agriculture programme coordinator

We aim for all our projects to be based on the knowledge and expertise of our staff and the people we are supporting as we believe that is the best way to design and deliver an impactful project.

Mohammed Conteh, our agricultural officer is now undertaking on-going monitoring and support which is essential to the success of the programme. For example, community representatives visited the Reseed office to discuss sourcing of quality of seeds, changing the seed disbursal timelines due to the rains starting early, and how they are managing to prepare their lands for planting during Ramadan.

Our impact in detail

900

people supported through our agriculture pilot

150

people supported through each community agriculture project we run

How you can support our work

The compost training that we hosted across six communities in our pilot was far more popular than we could have ever imagined with 276 attendees, some even travelling from neighbouring villages to attend when they heard about it. This confirmed our understanding that soil degradation is a key challenge and so now we are seeking to expand that specific element of the wider programme due to demand.

For just £10 a month, you could support a whole community to set up their own composting and seed facility.