By Hassan Ibrahim Conteh

If you’re a Sierra Leonean living in Sierra Leone or staying in abroad and you are using the internet to get news or regularly watch global TV networks like Sky, Aljazeera, BBC, CGTN, you must be ever so worried by now when some food producing countries are adopting ways to shut down their food sales to other countries in the world.

This is what has happened in India as the government there bans rice shipments to control down its domestic prices.

It is what is also happening now in Europe with a prolonged war, risking food security on world’s continents. We are talking about the war between Russia and Ukraine.

But now, it is not only the Russia-Ukraine war that is affecting food production and food sufficiency, it is about climate change as well.

India, for example, has this week, stopped the shipments of rice to other countries. The government says it is doing that to make sure that domestic prices on the commodity become relatively cheaper.

But that seems to have raised wider public concerns on Indian farmers who get to make more income on overseas sales.

A BBC Online News has reported that: “Heavy rains have hurt crops in the country and rice prices have risen by more than 11% over the last 12 months,”

“Non-basmati white grain currently accounts for about a quarter of India’s rice exports, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs said as it announced the policy change” it said.

Since the Russia-Ukraine crisis has caused food supply in the world to be threated, a ban by Indian government could further exacerbate the growing threat on food consumption in the world.

Russia, China and Ukraine are the world’s largest producer of wheat.

China is the largest wheat producer and has harvested the grain to 2.4 bn tonnes over the last two decades.

Ukraine is the world’s ninth-largest wheat producer. According to a report, Ukraine wheat exports were valued $5.1 bn with Egypt, Indonesia, Turkey, Pakistan, and Bangladesh as the primary destinations.

Sub-Saharan Africans were consuming one-third more wheat per person than they had in 2000, according to Gro Intelligence.com.

And since Nigeria is the second largest consumer of wheat in sub-Saharan Africa, the decline in the supply mainly due to the war between Ukraine and Russia is sending a worrying sign of famine to occur in Africa and the world over.

Over government’s decision to ban India rice shipments to other countries, experts are concerned by the world’s leading exporter of rice.

“It’s fair to say this will have quite an impact on global food prices,” said Emma Wall, head of investment analysis and research at Hargreaves Lansdown.

And that is greatly going to affect Sierra Leone. This is because Sierra Leone is a rice eater than a wheat or corn, yam, cassava, etc. eater as staples of other African countries.

But the country has not been growing its own food as it depends on rice imports from Asia countries particularly India.

The nation’s Torma Bum rice farm initiative is still unable to feed Sierra Leoneans due to stagnation undermined by some corrupt elements.  Its presence has not been felt by Sierra Leoneans despite decades long of partners’ support to the government.

Commodities Trading Company (CTC) is the sole local wholesaler of rice to Sierra Leoneans and it gets its shipments from India.

The government of Sierra Leone is spending millions of dollars on rice importation.

Currently, as of July 21, 2023, in Sierra Leone, a half-bag (25kg) of white grain rice (Honey Pushawa) was bought by a consumer in Waterloo market at Le 345,000 (Old Leone).

This price is certainly going to increase than it is now following India’s ban.

If CTC fails to explore other means of shipping home the grain, government of Sierra Leone is going to bear the brunt of importing more rice into the country to avoid food insufficiency that may lead to famine and starvation for Sierra Leoneans.

In 2018, government of Sierra Leone, spent US $ 22.5 million on rice import, according to, United nations Comtrade data base on international trade.

On the global trend, below is the latest BBC news report on India’s situation and Ukraine’s grain dam attack by Russia.

India is the world’s biggest exporter of rice, accounting for more than 40% of global shipments.

Non-basmati rice is mainly exported to countries in Asia and Africa, BBC says.

But exporting can be more lucrative for Indian farmers than selling domestically.

The government said that farmers would still be able to export other kinds of rice, including long-grain basmati, ensuring they “get the benefit of remunerative prices in the international market”.

The state will also consider requests to allow shipments to other countries based on food security needs, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade said.

The invasion of Ukraine last year caused global food prices to surge.

While those pressures have since eased at an international level, in India, bad weather has damaged crops in many northern states, prompting the cost of many items – including tomatoes and onions – to rise sharply.

Devinder Sharma, an expert in agriculture policy in India: “The government is taking a very, very precautionary kind of approach,” he said.

Russian missile attacks on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast have destroyed 60,000 tonnes of grain and damaged storage infrastructure, officials say.

Agriculture Minister Mykola Solskyi said a “considerable amount” of export infrastructure was out of operation.

Russia has pulled out of a deal guaranteeing safe passage for exports across the Black Sea.

Russia’s President Putin has accused the West of using the grain deal as “political blackmail”.

He had said he would consider rejoining the international agreement, in place since last summer, only “if all principles under which Russia agreed to participate in the deal are fully taken into account and fulfilled”.

Following a drone-attack on Ukraine’s grain dam, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said each missile strike was a blow not just to Ukraine, but to “everyone in the world striving for a normal and safe life”.

France and Germany also condemned the attack. Germany Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, said that by covering Odesa with a hail of bombs, Russian President Vladimir Putin was robbing the world of any hope of Ukrainian grain and “hitting the world’s poorest”, according to report by BBC’s Paul Kilby.

When in the first week of June this year, Russia soldiers bombed seriously Ukraine agriculture dam, the bombings resulted to floods that devastate farmlands.

A report by BBC’s Paul Adams indicated:

“The immediate humanitarian consequences, in flooded homes and displaced civilians, are dramatic enough,” it said.

“But Ukrainian officials are now warning of serious long-term consequences for agriculture across one of the country’s most fertile areas.”

The agriculture ministry on Wednesday [ in June first week] predicted that fields in southern Ukraine could “turn into deserts as early as next year”, as vital irrigation systems, which depend on the vast Kakhovka reservoir, cease to function.

The reservoir is fast disappearing, sending an estimated 4.4 cubic miles of water roaring down the Dnipro River towards the Black Sea.

Before the war, the ministry says, 31 irrigation systems provided water for 584,000 hectares (more than 2,200 sq miles) of farmland.

“The dam was the only source of water for irrigation,” First Deputy Minister Taras Vysotsky told me.

“The dam and the pumping station in it were needed for us to take this water and deliver it. This is now destroyed. If farmers are going to have water lines, it should be built again from the beginning.”

The Kherson region is among Ukraine’s most fertile and productive.

Apart from its famous watermelons, the rich farmland either side of the Dnipro River produces a host of different crops, from onions and tomatoes to sunflowers, soybeans and wheat. Dairy farms are also likely to be affected.

Currently, on West Africa region, Guinean government has imposed a 6 months ban on Guinean food and agriculture products to enter Sierra Leone.

As all these gloomy events happen, planting season in Sierra Leone (which is usually between May and June) has passed without the government doing anything to grow its own rice.