LIVELIHOOD ZONING ACTIVITY IN LIBERIA - UPDATE A SPECIAL REPORT BY THE FAMINE EARLY WARNING SYSTEM NETWORK (FEWS NET) May 2017 1 LIVELIHOOD ZONING ACTIVITY IN LIBERIA - UPDATE A SPECIAL REPORT BY THE FAMINE EARLY WARNING SYSTEM NETWORK (FEWS NET) April 2017 This publication was prepared by Stephen Browne and Amadou Diop for the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), in collaboration with the Liberian Ministry of Agriculture, USAID Liberia, WFP, and FAO. The authors’ views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Agency for International Development or the United States Government. Page 2 of 60 Contents Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... 4 Acronyms and Abbreviations ......................................................................................................... 5 Background and Introduction......................................................................................................... 6 Methodology ............................................................................................................................... 8 National Livelihood Zone Map .......................................................................................................12 National Seasonal Calendar ..........................................................................................................13 Timeline of Shocks and Hazards ....................................................................................................14 Livelihood Zone Descriptions ........................................................................................................15 Livelihood Zone 1: North-East Rice Farming Palm Oil .......................................................................15 Livelihood Zone 2: North/Central Rice with Cassava and Market Gardening .......................................18 Livelihood Zone 3: South-East Rice with Cassava .............................................................................21 Livelihood Zone 4: Coastal Plain Cassava with Rice and Inland Fishing................................................23 Livelihood Zone 5: Coastal Fishing and Cassava ...............................................................................26 Livelihood Zone 6: Rice Intercropped and Forest Hunting .................................................................28 Livelihood Zone 7: Border Cacao and Coffee Farming ......................................................................30 Livelihood Zone 8 - Rubber and Charcoal with Food Crops................................................................33 Livelihood Zone 9 - Peri-Urban: Petty Trade, Market Gardening and Casual Employment ....................36 Livelihood Zone 10 – Mining/Concession and Farming Zone .............................................................38 Annex I – List of workshop participants ..........................................................................................40 Annex II – Clans by Livelihood Zone ...............................................................................................41 Page 3 of 60 Acknowledgements This work was done by Famine Early Warning Systems Network in collaboration with its partners: the government of Liberia including the Ministry of Agriculture, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Programme. A special recognition goes out to Mr. Patrick Worzie, Assistant Minister for Planning and Development in the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), who is to be thanked for his cooperation, especially in the organization of the workshop and his identification of county participants. A special thank you goes to all the participants1 themselves for taking a very active and enthusiastic role in the workshop, and for engaging in meaningful discussions and providing quality information for a coherent outcome. The zoning exercise was facilitated by Mr. Stephen Browne and Mr. Amadou Diop of FEWS NET. 1 Participants are listed in ANNEX 1 Page 4 of 60 Acronyms and Abbreviations AGRHYMET Regional Centre for Training & Applications in Agrometeorology & Operational Hydrology CILSS Permanent Inter-State Committee for the Drought Control in the Sahel FAO Food & Agriculture Organization of the United Nations FEWS NET The Famine Early Warning Systems Network HEA Household Economy Analysis LZ Livelihood Zone MoA Ministry of Agriculture PPR Peste des petits ruminants WFP United Nations World Food Programme Page 5 of 60 Background and Introduction This exercise was a verification of the livelihood zoning that was conducted under the aegis of the Regional Centre for Training and Applications in Agrometeorology and Operational Hydrology (AGRHYMET), a specialized institution of CILSS (the Permanent Inter-State Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel), and the Ministry of Agriculture of Liberia in late 2016. The 2016 workshop included participation from experts in Monrovia rather than those currently working at the county level; therefore it was recommended that a separate activity be scheduled to verify zone boundaries. The results of the livelihood zone verification exercise included in this report aimed to corroborate information from the 2016 livelihood zone update by including the participation of Ministry of Agriculture county representatives. In addition to the county-level experts, FEWS NET invited representatives from the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Food Programme and Food for Peace Officers from USAID. The national livelihood mapping and zoning verification workshop in Liberia was held from April 17 through 19, 2017 in Monrovia. This report draws heavily from both the report produced by AGRHYMET in 2016 and the 2010 report produced by FEWS NET. The overall objective of this activity aims to improve the understanding of rural livelihoods and to identify vulnerabilities to shocks according to geographical location, thereby constituting a sampling framework for future analyses based on livelihoods. This report presents the findings of the zoning workshop and includes both the national zoning map, brief descriptions of each zone, seasonal and access calendars and an account of the map construction process. The two geographically prominent kinds of livelihood zone – rice dominant and cassava dominant – reflect a fundamental ecological divide in the country. This is between the coastal plain and the elevation of the interior up to the borders with Guinea and Ivory Coast. Apart from a couple of high ridges, the elevation is mostly below 500 meters above sea level, but it is enough to tip Liberia into a general slope across which the major drainage of the country runs, many of the major rivers originating in the highlands of southern Guinea and finally issuing into the Atlantic at points along the Liberian coast. Cassava is grown in greatest volume on the coastal plain, whilst rice (virtually all rain-fed or in swampland rather than irrigated) dominates the higher hinterland. However, between the north-west, center and the south-east there are sufficient differences in the crop production scene to warrant a division of the main rice areas into three zones. But it has to be said that in comparison to the dramatic ecological differences within other countries, e.g. the high mountain to low rangeland of Kenya and Ethiopia, or the Sahara sands to savannah/Guinean vegetation in Sahel countries, Liberia has only moderate variation in ecology, rainfall patterns and hazards. We have settled on nine zones (including the periphery of Monrovia itself) by emphasizing certain special features of areas which nevertheless all sit squarely on the base economy of rice-with-cassava or cassava-with-rice. On the other hand, that difference in the base economy is strong enough for it not to be masked by the fact that Liberia is a heavy net importer of staple rice, and the consumption of imported rice, rather than being confined essentially to an urban population, is part of the diet of rural people across the country. Page 6 of 60 Apart from climatic or ecological differences, a major element in distinguishing economic areas is their relative access to the Monrovia market, which inter alia encourages local rice sales in the northern half of the country. That market represents the demand of as much as one-third of the national population for farm produce, fish, goods, and even labor. The Rubber and Charcoal LZ 8 exists precisely because a) rubber plantations were situated on land not too far from the port and b) the nearby city demand for charcoal particularly favors the road-oriented population who have access to abandoned rubber trees. At the other end of the country, South-East Rice (LZ 3) is largely defined by its isolation from Monrovia and the resulting absence of marketing opportunities. There is no paved road towards the capital along which goods can easily be moved, and indeed local villages are cut off even from local centers during the rains. Given that some combination of rice and cassava cultivation is ubiquitous, it is sometimes secondary products that distinguish a livelihood zone. In the hunting zone (LZ 6) the people are actually essentially farmers by vocation, even often nearly self-sufficient in food. But the income from bushmeat is considered important enough and distinctive enough to justify making this a separate zone. Once again Monrovia is an important market for this product, at least in dried