Liberia: Bong County’s New Road Machines Could Open the Way from Farm to Market, Says EPA Boss Yarkpawolo

GBARNGA, Bong County – The arrival of 30 pieces of heavy earthmoving equipment in Bong County is being greeted as a turning point for the county’s farmers, traders and rural families. The head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says the machines could turn isolation into opportunity. By Selma Lomax, selma. lomax@frontpageafricaonline. com Dr. Emmanuel King Urey Yarkpawolo, the EPA Executive Director and a son of Zota District, said the yellow machines carry meaning far beyond the construction work they are expected to do. In his view, passable roads sit at the heart of food security, farm income and the daily survival of rural households. In a statement marking the arrival, Dr. Yarkpawolo commended President Joseph Nyuma Boakai for placing roads at the center of his administration’s agenda.

He argued that the initiative could begin to ease transportation problems that have long held back farming and trade in Bong, one of the country’s most important agricultural counties. He leaned on a saying the President is known for: that people cannot eat a road, yet a road is what allows people to eat. “People do not eat road, but it is road that can make people eat,” he recalled. According to the EPA chief, the line captures what farmers across rural Liberia live with every season. Farmers in Bong, he explained, put months of labor and money into growing rice, cassava, vegetables and plantains. But the work does not end at harvest. Getting crops out of the village and into a market is often the harder part, and where roads have deteriorated, that journey can fail altogether. The rainy season makes matters worse. Mud, washed-out surfaces and damaged crossings can cut off whole farming settlements, leaving vehicles unable to reach them. Produce waiting by the roadside may…