Can Liberia produce enough food to feed its nearly 4 million citizens? The answer to that question may not be a resounding 'yes' for now.  There are still hurdles! But the prospects are certainly improving. While the country is blessed with an excellent climate favorable to agriculture, extensive biodiversity, and vast natural resources, decades of war obviously ravaged Liberia's productive assets.

Relative political stability has returned to the country since the end of the civil war in 2003, and though  Liberia still struggles to overcome the social, economic, and human costs , there are vital signs that agriculture activities are once more on the rise,

Just before the country descended into fighting in 1989, Liberia imported only 30 percent of its rice mostly because the government dropped all import duties on farming tools to help farmers to increase production.

Four years ago in 2008, when security forces  stopped a truck carrying about 700 bags of rice at the Guinea border, the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf led government banned all food exports, particularly rice, because profiteers were taking advantage of the country's cheap rice prices - already in short supply in Liberia - to neighboring countries to sell at higher prices. The government discovered that dealers from neighboring countries were buying up bags of rice on the Liberia's market to resell in countries like Guinea where it is more expensive, the then Commerce Minister Frances Johnson Morris said. The government launched a campaign to urge Liberians to adjust their diet toward starches other than rice, like yams, cassava, plantains and eddoes.

"If you compare our price of rice with those in the sub-region, we have the lowest," Morris told reporters. She said a 50-kilogram bag of rice costs between $26 and $28 in Liberia, compared with up to $50 a bag in Guinea.

Under a 13-million-dollar European Union food facility to tackle the food price crisis U.N. agencies and the country's Ministry of Agriculture have been promoting the rehabilitation of swampland, irrigation schemes and dams which had fallen into disrepair as part of

Rice imports accounted for 60 percent of total consumption in the year to May 2008 in a country where the farming population is dispersed, rain fed crops are farmed with small machinery and processing is limited - all of which heighten the country's vulnerability to international market shocks, according to the U.N.

Liberian subsistence agriculture is traditionally based on burning bushes on slopes for farming but experts say it is in the interest of the government to encourage farmers to use the country's more than 560,000 hectares of swampland.

"While the yields in uplands range between half to one metric tons per hectare, in the lowlands (swamps) it is between 2.5 to 3.5 metric tons per hectare under traditional farming and should you adopt improved methods of farming you could take it to 5 metric tons per hectare," According to Sheku Kamara, a food expert delegated to support the farmers by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

According to statistics, in 2010, the total demand for milled rice in Liberia was estimated at 465,276t.

Being a popular food choice in Liberia, the annual per capita consumption of rice (133 Kg per year) is the highest in Africa. The gap between the demand and local production is met through importation of rice from countries such as China and USA. The large importation of rice adds pressure on the country's trade balance and its foreign exchange. Given the social and political significance of rice in Liberia, there is a strong need for increasing domestic rice production.

In response to the global food crisis in 2008, the Government of Liberia acknowledged the importance of increasing rice production and has helped markets increase the rice supply by subsidizing the importation of rice. The government did not only acknowledged, it decided to do something about it.

The government is targeting 2018 as the year it should be able to double local rice production. In a comprehensive strategy document titled: The Liberia's National Rice Development Strategies (LNRDS), the strategies proposed aim to achieve this by increasing the rice productivity in both upland and lowland ecosystems and by expanding the land area under rice cultivation in the lowlands

The intensive slash and burning of food crops has reduced the levels of soil nutrients in the uplands, thus affecting the sustainability of rice production in the uplands. Whereas in the lowlands, the vast uncultivated land area, the abundant water resources and the climatic suitability offer greater potential for increased rice yields and multiple rice cropping cycles.

Thus the scopes for sustainable rice production and the profitability of growing rice are substantially higher in the lowlands than in the uplands. The LNRDS aspires to improve productivity in smallholder rice farms through a value chain approach in which the needs and issues of various subsectors will be addressed through an integrated approach.

According to the government, the six main strategic components of LNRDS include (i) Land and water management, (ii) Increasing availability and accessibility of smallholder farmers to farm inputs, (iii) Enhancing post-harvest quality improvement, (iv)  Increasing access to market, (v) Institutional capacity building, and (vi) Mechanization. The abundant land and water resources could play an important role in doubling rice production.

The LNRDS aspires to rehabilitate existing irrigation infrastructures and construct new irrigation schemes with improved drainage and water storage facilities in the lowlands. Policy tools outlining the guidelines on maintenance, ownership and water sharing under these schemes will be developed and disseminated. The sustain ability of rice production will be enhanced through improved land management practices and increased adoption of organic-and inorganic fertilizers in smallholder rice farms.

So, the question: 'Can Liberia Feed Itself?' may eventually come to a resounding 'yes'.