Also,nutrients are taken up from deeper layers by roots of trees and shrubs and returned to the top soil via litter fall and root senescence.Restoration of soil fertility by this means requires several years of fallow and has become inadequate in the face of increasing populations and food demand as well as competing alternative land uses. This has led to considerable reduction in the fallow period and the cultivation of marginal lands.In Sierra Leone, the uplands account for about 80% of the total arable land. The bush fallow system is a very common farming practice on the uplands of Sierra Leone although it is also practiced in almost all agroeclogies. Upland rice farming system involvesinter cropping rice with a variety of other crops such as cassava, maize, sorghum,sesame, pigeon pea, okra,hydroponic nft system garden egg, and other leafy vegetables. Rice normally occupies about 50% of the cropland .
Generally, the length of fallow period is reported to differ across the country with a mean of 8.8 years . In recent times, it is reported that the fallow period has dropped from the recommended period of ten or more years to about 5 years in rural areas and 3 – 4 years along major highways .Apart from the FAO/UNDP survey in 1979 which estimated an average fallow period of 8.8, there has been very little work done to update information on length of fallow period in different parts of the country. There is lack of information on the current extent of reduction in fallow period in different parts of the country particularly in the eastern region of Sierra Leone which is home to the remaining rainforest of the country.The continued decline in the fallow period is a major threat to the persistence of the rainforest in the eastern region of Sierra Leone as farmers are tempted to slash-and- burn the remaining forest for upland rice farming. An understanding of the extent of reduction in fallow period in the Eastern Region of Sierra Leone will throw light on the magnitude of the problem and inform policy makers and land use planners to enable them develop intervention strategies to counteract the negative impact of the practice.
This study was therefore conducted to determine: 1) the extent of reduction of the fallow period in the Nongowa Chiefdom of Kenema District; 2) the causes of reduction in the fallow period; 3) farmers’ perception of the relevance of fallow period and the implications of reduction of fallow period on crop production. Sierra Leone is divided into four administrative blocks: the Provinces, nft channel the Districts, the Chiefdoms, and the Sections in decreasing sizes and administrative authority respectively.The study was conducted in four Sections of the Nongowa Chiefdom: GboLambayama, Gbo Kakajama, Kagbado Kamboima and Dagbanya.The natural vegetation in these communities consists of secondary forest or farm bush with small trees or shrubs as a result of frequent felling of trees for farming. In each Section, a list of farmers practising slash-and-burn agriculture on the uplands was prepared and a total of twenty farmers were randomly selected from the list by balloting. In total, eighty farmers were randomly selected for the study in the four Sections of Nongowa Chiefdom. Farmers’ interviewed revealed that the reduction of the fallow period is affected by the general level of development of the community.
As the community grows in size, the corresponding increase in economic activities results in more land being used for settlements and construction of infrastructure. Additionally, the advent of investors coming to acquire land for large scale agriculture has led to less land becoming available for cultivation. Consequently, for the remaining portion of lands to which farmers have been confined, the fallow period becomes increasingly shortened or reduced and people begin to move from one community to another in search of lands that have fallowed long enough for crop cultivation. Human activities such as mining, logging and cutting down of forest trees for poles, fuel wood and charcoal production were also identified by farmers as competing alternative land use practices that have had serious effects on the farming communities in terms of land availability. Although historical evidence seemed to blame shifting cultivation for much of deforestation in the tropics , evidence from this study showed that other competing land uses such as mining, commercial agriculture, logging and charcoal production have a dominant effect in recent times.