By: Christiana Mabande
The sole farm Patience Cooper depends on for a living took serious damage this year from climate change, which made her desire to send all five of her kids to school diminished.
According to 35-year-old Patience, the corn farm didn’t yield as much as expected, which made it harder for her to keep her children in school while still providing for other requirements.
“We are experiencing water shortage because it’s difficult to get the water table when wells are being dug.”
The World Bank estimates that 70% of Liberia’s working-age population is employed in agriculture, which provides the most immediate means of enhancing living standards and supplying food for the country’s population. Patience is one of the women here who mostly relies on farming for her subsistence, but this year the trade did not pay off, putting her and her children in unanticipated trouble.
Patience was able to finance all five of her children’s educations before this year from her harvest, but she now has to decide whether to send her oldest child to school or keep the others at home to assist her in her farming endeavors in the hopes that things will get better.
“We use insecticides to help prevent the insects from destroying our farm.”
In addition to the effects of climate change, Patience mentioned seedlings, tools for the job, and insecticide as additional significant challenges.
“Access to water is also a problem. We have to dig well before getting access to water,”
Ma Famata believed to be in her mid-seventy is a mother of eight children. Her husband is a retired Firestone tapper.
She is asking for assistance from the government and non-governmental organizations (NGOs); I have not received any funding or training from them.
Cooper is not the only farmer experiencing the effects of declining farming activity and climate change.
Famata Flomo is a mixed-farming local farmer who lives in Ma Zoe Town, District #1, Margibi.
Famata claimed that the extreme heat brought on by climate change has stunted crop growth in her bitter-boiled garden, “only the strong crops are surviving in the gardening.”
