Market prices

The World Food Programme's monthly market survey for Bonthe — imported and local rice, bonga, herring, palm oil and cassava — set beside Moyamba, Pujehun and Freetown, in new leones.

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No one publishes what things cost in Bonthe. But the World Food Programme's price collectors reach the market here every month, and the figures come back out in an open dataset — which is where this page gets them. It puts Bonthe's own prices beside three mainland markets: the rice that arrives by boat, the bonga and herring landed here, palm oil and cassava. These are retail prices — what a buyer pays at a stall, not what a boat or a trader is paid at the wharf. The survey is monthly and publishes weeks behind, so read this as the shape of the market rather than this morning's price.

Latest at Bonthe

From the June 2026 market survey.

NLe 17

Imported rice

per kg · June 2026

NLe 48

Bonga

per kg · June 2026

NLe 24

Local rice

per kg · June 2026

The newest survey here is getting old

The most recent survey in this dataset is from June 2026, and prices will have moved since. Use the figures to compare markets — which run cheap and which run dear — not as today’s price.

Compare markets

Imported rice — per kg

Market	Price
Bonthe	NLe 17
Moyamba	NLe 18
Pujehun	NLe 18
Freetown	NLe 16

All prices from the June 2026 survey.

Bonga — per kg

Market	Price
Bonthe	NLe 48
Moyamba	NLe 130
Pujehun	NLe 144
Freetown	NLe 144

All prices from the June 2026 survey.

Local rice — per kg

Market	Price
Bonthe	NLe 24
Moyamba	NLe 17
Pujehun	NLe 20
Freetown	NLe 24

All prices from the June 2026 survey.

Herring — per kg

Market	Price
Bonthe	NLe 42
Moyamba	NLe 100
Pujehun	NLe 122
Freetown	NLe 93

All prices from the June 2026 survey.

Palm oil — per litre

Market	Price	Survey
Bonthe	NLe 27	June 2026 — older survey
Moyamba	NLe 25	June 2026 — older survey
Pujehun	NLe 27	June 2026 — older survey
Freetown	NLe 34	February 2026 — older survey

Cassava — per kg

Market	Price
Bonthe	NLe 11
Moyamba	NLe 12
Pujehun	NLe 10
Freetown	NLe 11

All prices from the June 2026 survey.

How prices usually move through the year

Worked out from the same surveys going back to 2013: each month is compared with the average for its own market and year, so currency inflation drops out and only the seasonal shape remains. Only commodities with at least three years of history are shown.

Month	Imported rice vs the year’s average
January	-10%
February	-5%
March	-5%
April	about average
May	about average
June	about average
July	+5%
August	+5%
September	+5%
October	+5%
November	about average
December	about average

Commodity	Usually highest	Usually lowest
Bonga	November (+20%)	January (-25%)
Local rice	August (+10%)	January (-10%)
Herring	November (+5%)	December (-5%)
Cassava	September (+15%)	January (-15%)

The markets

Bonthe: in town, on Sherbro Island — everything sold here came in by boat
Moyamba: the next district capital, about 70 km north on the mainland
Pujehun: district capital about 90 km east on the mainland
Freetown: the capital and the country's main port, about 130 km up the coast — where imported rice lands first

Survey months, not today

The newest Bonthe rows in this dataset are from the May 2026 survey, and every figure on the page carries the month it was collected. WFP visits about once a month and the file is published some weeks later, so these are the last prices anyone wrote down, not today's prices at the stall.

About the fish prices

Bonga and herring are surveyed the same way as everything else — retail, per kilogram, at the market stall. That is not what a boat or a fish trader is paid at the landing, and no one publishes that. The fish figures also move far more month to month than the rice does: bonga at Bonthe was surveyed at NLe 106 a kilo in March 2026 and NLe 48 in May. Take a single month as one reading.

Why the mainland markets are here

Bonthe has no road. Rice, palm oil and most of what is sold here crosses the water first, so what the mainland markets charge is part of what the island ends up paying. Moyamba and Pujehun are the neighbouring district capitals; Freetown is where imported rice comes ashore.

For the radio

A short summary a presenter can read on air, survey month included.

From the June 2026 World Food Programme market survey: at Bonthe, imported rice at NLe 17 per kg, bonga at NLe 48 per kg, local rice at NLe 24 per kg. These are retail prices — what buyers pay at the market stall.

The World Food Programme still publishes Sierra Leone’s prices in old leones, under the retired SLL code — in its file a kilo of imported rice at Bonthe reads 18,343. The country changed the currency in July 2022, when 1,000 old leones became 1 new leone, so every figure on this page has been divided by 1,000: what you see is new leones (NLe), the money you hand over at the stall. If you open the dataset yourself, that is why its numbers are a thousand times bigger than these. The check on it: the Bank of Sierra Leone’s reference rate on 31 July 2026 was NLe 22.7860 to the US dollar, which puts a kilo of imported rice at about NLe 17 — and the same WFP file gives that row a US price of 0.76.

Updated 12 October 2026. Figures are in new leones (NLe, currency code SLE) — retail prices from the World Food Programme’s monthly market surveys, shared on the Humanitarian Data Exchange (CC BY-IGO). Surveys run about once a month and publish with a lag, so the newest figures can trail the market floor by a few weeks.