Troubling food insecurity #liberia

Liberia has informed its United States partner that over the past years, its staunting food insecurity rate reported was a troubling 42 percent, while malnutrition figure exceeded 60 percent. At a working session during the second US-Liberia Partnership Dialogue held in Monrovia Tuesday, 4 March, Liberia's Agriculture Minister Florence Chenoweth said, the Liberian side of the dialogue briefed its US counterpart on where the country stands in meeting its agricultural development goals. Just after delegates from both US and Liberian Governments had signed a joint statement at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Minister Chenoweth told an interactive discussion that Liberia briefed her US colleagues on developments and challenges in the agriculture sector. The Minister said the US delegates were informed that the major challenge Liberia faced at the time was that there was very little to work with in the sector. "We informed [them] that we have started a "guesstimate" of our state of food insecurity, which, thank God it was a guesstimate because there were people suggesting that it was over 18 percent; and when we did the first [study] in 2008, we had a more professional sound estimate of what food insecurity number was; and it was 49 percent," she said. Two years later, as a result of all of the interventions of the Liberian government and development partners, Minister Chenoweth disclosed that Liberia's food insecurity incumbent was 42 percent. From 2012 until 2013, she said the sector was able to on the one hand, report a success story of reducing its food insecurity to 36 percent. But Minister Chenoweth added, the 36 percent was nothing to dance about because very sadly... [It] was very insecure; and that Liberia had some malnutrition figures of over 60 percent which she described as seriously malnourished. "Our staunting rate for the country reported is a troubling 42 percent, which means for our country, as we try to develop, we are leaving behind 42 percent of our population and may never because they cannot or develop to their full potential," she said further. Transmitted in terms of economic loss, Minister Chenoweth said it's a loss of about 11 percent of Liberia's food GDP, but noted that on the other hand, the sector has put in place programs that aim to increase information on nutritional values. Minister Chenoweth said the majority of the Liberian farmers are still small holders, with women aged 50 in the majority. She said the size and proportion of those small farmers that are women is so large, and that a typical Liberian farmer is mostly a woman 50 years old. "But today hands off to our small holder farmers - they have made some major advances," she concluded. At the end of the partnership dialogue Tuesday, the head of the US delegation to Liberia Counselor Thomas Shannon said in a joint statement that both governments affirmed their commitment to work together to address the challenges Liberia faces in its agriculture, energy and education sectors. Counselor Thomas also said in coordination with the US Ambassador's Self Help Program, the African Development Foundation or ADF provides small grants to fund development projects in rural areas. He said the ADF is helping Liberia's poorest citizens start fish hatcheries, plant cassava and other crops, purchase agricultural inputs and machinery, and improving their skills, incomes and quality of life