Baseline Assessment Report: Assessing adoption of innovations in seed systems for rice, cassava, soybean, coffee, and fish value chains actors including youth and women to strengthen food and economic diversification in Liberia

Arouna, Aminou; Gbede, T.R.; Yergo, W.G.

Baseline Assessment Report: Assessing adoption of innovations in seed systems for rice, cassava, soybean, coffee, and fish value chains actors including youth and women to strengthen food and economic diversification in Liberia

Autores

Arouna, Aminou

Gbede, T.R.

Yergo, W.G.

Editor

AfricaRice

Descripción

This report presents results of socio-economic baseline assessment of the “Building resilient seed systems for rice, cassava, soybean, coffee, and fish value chains to strengthen food and economic diversification in Liberia (Seeds4Liberia)” project in Liberia. Five counties of Liberia were covered for the baseline survey. Data were collected through face-to-face interviews from a random sample of 1,500 value chain actors. Interviews were conducted using a structured household questionnaire programmed on the CSPro application installed on android tablets. Five value chains targeted by the Seeds4Liberia project—rice, cassava, soybean, coffee, and fish—were covered by this survey. Data collected were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics by means of Stata version 18. Results showed that the mean age of actors was 43 years, and nearly half of them (48%) were female. Most of them (83%) lived with spouses (were married), and many of them (78%) were heads of their households, with an average of seven people per household. In addition, about 61% of actors had at least some years of formal education. Only 33% of the rice farmers were aware of at least one improved rice variety (ICV) compared to 61%, 59%, 50% and 44% for soybean, coffee, cassava and fish producers, respectively. The main ICV known by rice farmers were NERICA L19 (45.21%), SAUKOKO-8 (42.47%), and LAC 23 (12.33%), while TGX (83.82%) and TGS (16.18%) were the main ICV that soybean farmers were aware of. For rice farmers, 57% reported that the ICV had been released, but only 39% and 41% indicated that their known ICV were registered in national and regional catalogues, respectively. In addition, only 5% of the farmers stated that seeds of the known ICV were sold on the market under a marketing brand. While 74% of rice farmers currently have access to ICV seeds, only 48% used certified seeds on their rice plots. For jobs and employment within the value chains, on average, 13 jobs were obtained by household members while approximately one permanent employment and one temporary employment were created by value chain actors within their production operations. Regarding income, the mean annual per capita household total income was about US$54 among the value chain actors surveyed, with agricultural income representing the larger share (~77%). About food security indicators, the average Household Food Consumption Score (HFCS) was 65.46. The mean Household Dietary Diversity Score (HDDS) was 8.4, and varied across value chain categories, with fish farmers recording the highest HDDS (9.14). With respect to the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS), the average score was 9.69, but differed significantly by value chain group, with soybean farmers exhibiting the highest score (10.07). The prevalence analysis showed that over 80% of the value chain households were severely food insecure. This underscores the urgent need for interventions to improve food access, diversify income sources, and strengthen resilience within these value chains in Liberia.