Vietnamese Experts To Help African Farmers

A delegation of Vietnamese agricultural experts are in Sierra Leone in eastern Africa for a co-operation programme which will help educate farmers to grow Vietnamese rice varieties.

Vietnamese engineers will build a small irrigation work and grow  different Vietnamese rice varieties on a trial basis and then shortlist two to three varieties that best suit the soil and climatic conditions in Sierra Leon.

The model will then be multiplied on a large scale in this eastern African country under a programme in which one Vietnamese farmer will train four Sierra Leon farmers how to grow Vietnamese rice. Under this programme, many more farmers in the Mekong river delta will be arriving in Sierra Leon.

Sierra Leon consumes around 600,000 Mt of rice each year with over 60% of this amount has to be imported.