— As nine in ten farmers say they plan to migrate
They are a big group of Liberians. Three in every four farmers here in the country’s second most populous county are considering migrating because their farming career is no longer sustaining them and their families because of climate change.
A Daily Observer/New Narratives survey of 50 farmers in Sanniquellie Mah, Gbehlay Geh, Zoe Geh and Bain Gar Administrative Districts, found 38, or 74 percent, said migrating overseas or elsewhere in Monrovia is now their only option as crops fail for the third, forth or fifth year in a row. The survey comes as trafficking and smuggler scams tick up across West Africa. Experts say desperate farmers are highly vulnerable to enticement. Indeed, nearly a third of those surveyed had already made plans to travel. Several shared accounts that suggested they had likely already been engaged with potential traffickers.
Alice Konah had just come from picking her bitter ball from her farm in Zainsonnon Town, Sanniquellie Mah District carrying some brown and shrunken bitter balls. The 24-year-old says the vegetables she used to grow were healthy. This year’s delayed rain and high temperatures spoiled her harvest.
“When we brush like that, burn the farm, we scratch it, no good food,” Alice says. “The only thing that only small cassava can be there. Myself I tired now. I want to go on my feet, for me to go hustle. I want to travel to go somewhere for me to make my life easy.”
The same thing is happening across the country. The Nimba survey was part of a bigger survey of 300 farmers under 40 years of age in five counties across the country—Nimba, Montserrado, Bong, Rivercess and Grand Bassa. The survey made a clear that climate change is causing despair across the five counties.
Nine out of every ten farmers surveyed across the country wanted to migrate. The majority wanted to go abroad with the United States coming out as the most attractive destination. Three quarters wanted to travel for work and economic opportunities. The rest said they hoped to study.
Increased internet access brought missed blessings. More internet access meant more access to potential traffickers, but it also brought greater knowledge of the legitimate or safe ways of traveling overseas such as the US diversity lottery. People in bigger towns, and nearer to the capital, were more likely to tell stories that suggested they may have been in touch with traffickers already. Those in Bong and Nimba were less likely to have made plans than those in Montserrado and Rivercess.
In Montserrado, where more people had access to smart phones, 100 percent of survey participants had heard bad stories about people who had been tricked into scams or modern slavery, while traveling abroad. But most said that would not stop them going. They believed that they would be able to spot a scam and would not fall victim as others had.
It is very unlikely that they will be the ones to spot the scam, according to Mercy Pyne, Assistant Director of the Division of Trafficking at the Ministry of Labor. Traffickers are highly sophisticated and the dangers are real. Pyne points to hundreds of Liberians who have been lured into modern slavery in the Middle East. Some have had body parts such as kidneys stolen and sold. Some have died.
“You got to be careful who you talk to on social media,” warns Pyne. “We always want to talk to them to be patient, to be patient in life, and use the right procedure to travel. We are not stopping you from traveling. But you need the proper channel to travel. They keep leaving Liberia thinking that if they leave Liberia they will get better living but every time they go there they see it’s not better. When you are caught sometimes they take your organ; they take your living parts from you to sell it. Sometimes you don’t live to tell the story.”
Climate change driven migration is a growing worry across the world as rising temperatures, worsening droughts, and extreme storms and floods, uproot millions of people according to the Organization of International Migration. Each year brings new records for globally displaced people and new records of people crossing borders into the United States, Europe and other destinations. As a result of the effects of climate change such as temperatures rise, land degradation, extreme heatwave, in 2022 alone, 23.7 million people were displaced according to the UK Meteorological Office. More than 8,000 deaths were recorded.
The number of Africans migrating because of climate change could reach 113 million people by 2050 according to Africa Shifts report
Rickson Johnson also wants to migrate. The 30-year-old, who left school in grade 7, has just come through his worst year. After working all year and spending money on his crops he produced little.
“This 2023, the farm I made, it carried me back because all of the money spent, I did’t have because of climate change,” Rickson says. “It is encouraging for me to look for another place to go so that at least I will be able to make good life. Because when I see this happening to me in this country, it makes me to feel hurt.”
Rickson says he is aware of the dangers involved in traveling illegally. “Whenever I get money I will be able to travel that I will not be able to take stowaway. I will walk, I will move freely and then take the main entry of the country I that I want to travel to.”
But there are few legal options for people like Rickson to travel. With his low education level, lack of money and skills, he would be unlikely to get a visa to any country legally. Experts say people like Rickson are extremely vulnerable to trafficking scams.
Mamie Wonzon has given up on farming, after several failed harvests, and turned to making charcoal. Mamie comes from generations of farmers. Her parents had been farmers growing enough to raise her and her two brothers. But it can no longer support her and her five children.
“Because I tired to make farm now,” says Mamie, a 38-year-old mother of five. “I want to go to Ganta, for me and my children them to live there I be selling small, small things. I can buy coal and sell it for me and my children them to be eating.”
Liberia has been hit with a wave of climate related disasters. Recently, Ansu Dulleh, Executive Director of Liberia’s National Disaster Management Agency, announced windstorms had hit three counties—Nimba, Bong and Gbapolu – leaving trail of destruction. Nearly 2,000 people were impacted; two had serious injuries.
Harry S. D. Larmi, Zoe Geh District Agriculture Officer
Authorities across the country are pleading with farmers to take advantage of training opportunities to change their farming practices to so-called “smart agriculture” instead of abandoning their farms.
“They don’t have the technical know how, so they want to move,” says Harry S. D. Larmi, Zoe Geh District Agriculture Officer. “Because you see when the environment changed, you either adapt, if you don’t adapt, you migrate, if you don’t migrate, you perish.”
“We should think about moving into the lowland and leaving the forest,” says Larmi. Advocates of smart agriculture practices tell farmers to move to lowland areas which holds water better in times of drought. He wants them to stop traditional practices of cutting and burning the forests which are contributing to biodiversity loss and climate change.
“Leave the periphery [surrounding of the lowland] for vegetable production,” Larmi says. “Because you can’t live on only rice, you need vegetable, you need plants and animals to live.”
“The government is trying to find solution, but the solution is not for only one person, not for one nation. It is a global problem and it should be handled globally,” Larmi says.
Meanwhile Pyne and other anti-trafficking officials are calling on the government to increase awareness campaigns to discourage Liberians from travelling illegally.
“And, I think Liberians, some of them want to see for themselves,” said Pyne. “Maybe they will feel like, maybe we want to know, maybe they lying to us. And when people don’t see sometimes they don’t believe. But the best thing the government is doing is to create awareness. We will keep talking with them, we will keep talking with them and I think this will eliminate human trafficking in Liberia.”
This story was a collaboration with New Narratives. Funding was provided by the American Jewish World Service. The funder had no say in the story’s content. Evelyn Kpadeh Seagbeh, Eric Opa Doue, Nukanah Kollie, Joseph Titus Yekeryon and King Brown contributed reporting.
