By Mohamed Lamin Banya
Winner of Blog for Development for Sierra Leone Tholoma Sumah has said agriculture can solve over 70% of Africa’s problems.
Tholoma Sumah made this disclosure while speaking on the topic: “Youth in Agriculture” at the Regional Youth Summit in Kenema District.
Speaking to AYV about the summit Sumah said agriculture plays an integral role in achieving all of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, adding that it should be seen as an emergency in Africa.
Tholoma Sumah despite being a journalist described himself as a Pan Africanist and called on Sierra Leoneans and other Africans to embark on agriculture to produce food abundantly, create jobs and boost the economy.
He lamented that African is not making total use of its available resources; land and the energetic human resources, stating that commercial agriculture does not only mean mechanized agriculture.
“Africa can produce abundantly without machines; Sierra Leone was exporting rice as late as the 1970s,” he disclosed, adding that Africans have been misinformed to believe that it is only through the use of machines that mass production can be done.
“I am not ruling out machines; but we Africans must not be waiting on machines till we eventually die of hunger” he added.
He went on to say that Africa should be producers of what it consumes and that we must be producers of our own food, clothes, furniture and be the ones building their own roads and other infrastructures.
