The February 2023, Food Security Monitoring System Report highlights some of the key contributors of the deteriorating food security levels in Sierra Leone. The rate of deterioration in country has been following a significantly steeper curve over the past 2 years due to negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the global food crisis since the start of the Russia – Ukraine war.
The findings shared in the report underlines the severity of the situation, where one in every five households are now food insecure (i.e they have run out of food and gone a day or more without eating the required food) and 95 percent of them spend over half of their income on food items.
The report also includes findings on trends in macro-economic indicators such as historically high headline and food inflation rates, which is reflected on households’ economic capacity to meet its essential needs (ECMEN) indicator findings that shows that 80 percent of Sierra Leonean households cannot afford a healthy diet and 89 percent cannot meet their essential needs.
Increased input costs for agricultural production such as chemical fertilizers, seeds, and high transportation costs to markets constitute the local outcomes that impact the income levels of small holder farmers stemming from the higher global political and economic volatility. Considering the nation’s economic dependence on agriculture sector, which constitutes over half of its GDP, these stressors translate into increased food insecurity levels for most of the Sierra Leonean people living in both in rural and urban areas.
