23/08/2025
Smallholder Farmers Cry Out Over Executive Order No. 151.
By: Benedict M. Kerkulah
[email protected]
Morrison Farm, Montserrado County & Kakata, Margibi County – Smallholder farmers in Montserrado and Margibi Counties are voicing growing frustration and despair over President Joseph Nyuma Boakai, Sr Executive Order No. 151, which bans the export of unprocessed rubber from Liberia.
The order, intended to encourage local value addition and promote the establishment of rubber-processing industries in the country, is having unintended consequences for Hundreds of rural farmers who depend almost entirely on rubber sales for survival.
Farmers say the ban has left them unable to sell their produce. Brokers have stopped buying rubber, citing the new restriction, while Firestone, Liberia’s largest and most trusted rubber company has reportedly suspended purchases from small farmers.
“We carry our rubber to the brokers, and they tell us they are not buying because of the President’s order,” one farmer lamented. “School is about to open, but we don’t have a cent to pay fees. How will our children learn if we can’t send them to school?”
The impact of the policy is being felt most severely as the new academic year approaches. Many farmers say they now fear their children will be forced to remain at home, as they cannot afford tuition or school materials.
Another farmer, his voice breaking with emotion, explained:
“We depend only on rubber to survive. With this order, we can’t sell, we can’t buy food, and our children can’t go to school. Some of us are already going to bed hungry.”
The Farmers has describe the situation as a growing humanitarian crisis, warning that families are not only losing income but also hope. Farmers who once relied on their hard work in the farms to provide for their children now feel abandoned.
They also lamented that the Government of Liberia imposed Executive Order #151 without a consensus-building process with actors in the sector, a move they believe is intended to take Liberians out of business and turn small rubber farmers into spectators of their own economy, pushing them toward abject poverty. They are therefore calling for the order to be amended to give a clear timeline for Liberians to establish processing factories that will absorb local production.
They are also appealing to President Boakai to reconsider or suspend the measure, at least for smallholders, until alternative markets or local processing opportunities are made available.
"Mr. President, we are begging you. Please hear our cry. Please lift this order so our families don’t starve, and so our children don’t lose their future,” the Farmers pleaded.
