Liberia’s rice and tilapia co-culture project celebrates first harvest

As part of the project, farmers across Liberia’s Gbarpolu, Grand Gedeh, Maryland, Margibi and River Gee Counties received improved tilapia fingerlings to co-culture with Nerica-L19 rice seeds. Members of the Gborfelleh Farmers Association celebrated their first rice harvest with the new method on 26 October, and the first tilapia harvest is expected in the coming months. Augustine Moore, a farmer participating in the initiative, says that the co-culture method is a new beginning for farmers in his area. “We were into shifting cultivation, and we harvested just once in the year. But with this improved variety taking only three months to mature, we can harvest rice more than three times a year. If you look at it, the addition of [aquaculture] to rice farming is the way to go for us because we will get money by farming all two. “This is what that I called, ‘taking farmers out of poverty.’ We don’t have to move from one plot to another anymore. I really don’t see that happening ...