Carter Center Global Health Efforts - Guinea

Activities By Country

Fighting Disease: Guinea

Increasing Food Production

Sasakawa-Global 2000, a joint venture between The Carter Center and the Sasakawa Africa Association — led by the Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Norman Borlaug until his death in 2009 — began teaching Guinean farmers how to use new technologies to increase crop production in 1986. This effort, in collaboration with the Guinea Ministry of Agriculture, is part of a larger initiative that has helped more than 8 million small-scale sub-Saharan African farmers learn new farming techniques to double or triple grain production.

The prescription was simple: Farmers were provided with credit for fertilizers and seeds to grow production test plots. Following successful harvests, which usually exceed previous harvests by 200 to 400 percent, farmers taught their neighbors about the new technologies, creating a ripple effect to stimulate food self-sufficiency in the nation.

In 1996, activities concentrated on studying the constraints and possible technical solutions to increasing production of the country's main food crop, rice. About 80 percent of Guinea's rice is produced in rain-fed upland areas, where farmers have been using slash-and-burn methods, moving on to new land after several growing cycles and encroaching constantly into the forest zone, which provides an important source of rain for several West African countries.

During that same year, 50 production test plots were established in these upland areas, with half of the plots devoted to cultivation of a crop called mucuna, which was imported from Benin, also a Carter Center agricultural project country. Each year, the fields were rotated between rice and mucuna to improve the available nutrients in the soil.

Because women dominate agricultural production in Guinea, in 1997, the program recruited an initial group of 200 local women to participate in cultivation and food preparation activities. Women were given credit to buy maize, cassava, and soybean seeds for cultivation, and then, one woman from each group of 20 was sent to Ghana to learn how to prepare these new crops for meals.

In 2003, the program began focusing on the production and distribution of improved seeds and rice, supporting research centers in generating improved soil fertility management techniques and strengthening human capacity through continuous training. These activities had the overarching goals of transferring ownership of the projects to Guinean farmers and institutions.

Also in 2003, the program facilitated access to 183 metric tons of fertilizer and 23 tons of improved seed to farmers, farmers' groups, agricultural colleges, and research centers. The program also continued promoting an improved variety of rice as part of the New Rice for Africa initiative developed by the West African Rice Development Association. This included assistance in exporting 12 tons of rice and 1 ton of quality protein maize to Gambia, Mali, and Ethiopia.

A pilot project in partnership with the government of Japan also was launched to develop agro-industry based on the new rice production. The project tackled two primary issues: gender – more than 80 percent of the participants are women – and the environment. Several areas were covered in programming, including: seed production, soil fertility management, farm management, and post-harvest technologies.

In Guinea, grain quality often is reduced due to poor processing methods. Women often are responsible for removing the grain from its stalks and husks by hand, causing some grain to be damaged in the process. A major objective of the program was therefore to improve threshing and handling of the rice grain. Such action can reduce the drudgery for women and improve the quality of the produce.

The Carter Center ended its agricultural activities in Guinea in 2004.