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Small scale irrigated rice development | |
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Initially the government planned to establish only large
scale irrigated rice schemes in the country, following the success of such
schemes in other countries. Unfortunately the soil- and topographical
surveys of the FAO team showed that the rugged Liberian landscape
contained very few larger river valley basins suitable for irrigated
rice cultivation with areas of over 100 ha. The team’s surveys showed,
however, that a large number of small sized river valleys existed, with
a potential for all year round irrigated rice cultivation, which could
offer an alternative. Typically these swamp areas measured between 1 and
10 ha. Important for this type of swamp development was to establish low
cost reclamation methods which could be implemented by farmers with only
a minimum of investment and outside assistance. Another important issue
was to solve the problem of iron toxicity, which occurred as soon as the
swamps were cleared from the vegetation, after which the pH drops
suddenly to below 4. Considering these two issues the project’s soil &
land development specialists and rice agronomist developed a low cost
land reclamation method for small scale rice production, based on the
use of simple tools and local available material, which could be easily
adopted and paid for by Kissi farmers. |
Slideshow small scale
The rural economy
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Charles van Santen December 2005 |
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