In Liberia, lots of rubber production but no new tyres
Harry Somah scrapes bark from a tree on his farm in western Liberia with a tapping knife, as thick rubber pours slowly into a cup.
Rubber is among Liberia's main cash crops, but experts say the poor west African nation is shortchanged when tyres and other rubber goods are manufactured abroad.
Somah, in his 70s, inherited his rubber farm from his father and grandfather before him. It sits in a district of Grand Bassa County known as Compound One, where rubber has been his family's only stable source of income for decades.
But he says the compensation is too low.
Just like thousands of other Liberians, the Somahs sell their crop to the country's largest rubber company, Firestone Liberia, which is located some 40 kilometres (25 miles) east of the capital Monrovia and has been in the country for 100 years.
In addition to buying rubber from independent farmers like the Somahs, Firestone Liberia, a subsidiary of Bridgestone, also produces its own rubber.
Firestone operates the world's largest contiguous natural rubber plantation, stretching almost 480 square kilometres (185 square miles) and employing more than 4,000 people.
There are also a handful of other rubber companies in Liberia.
Yet tyre and large-scale rubber goods manufacturing does not exist in the country, where most people drive on used and worn out tyres.
"Liberia captures only a small portion of the total value generated from its natural rubber", Bonokai George Gould, an economics professor at the University of Liberia and a coordinator for strategic planning at the Central Bank of Liberia, told AFP.
While there is no official estimate of the financial loss from the absence of manufacturing, Gould said "the economic opportunity cost is considerable".
Manufacturing tyres and rubber products creates "industrial jobs, technology transfer, tax revenues, export earnings and the development of supporting industries", he said.
Used tyres
Gould warned that Liberia would require "substantial investments in infrastructure, energy, skills (manpower-development) and a conducive business environment" in order to manufacture rubber goods.
Firestone Liberia told AFP that not only is there not "specialized manufacturing capacity or the level of electrical and industrial infrastructure necessary to produce tyres on a mass scale", but the additional materials needed to make tyres are not readily available in the region.
The majority of Liberians meanwhile drive on cheap, used tyres, imported from places like Europe, America and China.
Repairing and reselling the poor-quality tyres has become a profitable business, and makeshift shops are ubiquitous.
Monrovia-based reseller and repairer Mory Soumaoro said he repairs 100 or more used tyres each month.
And he said he makes far more money selling used tyres than brand new ones, which people are unable to afford.
Resellers like Soumaoro can buy imported used tyres for $15 to $40, and make about $10 per tyre after markups, he told AFP. Meanwhile new tyres sell for up to $250.
Lawrence Yealue, chairperson of the National Civil Society Council of Liberia, questioned the process: "We send the raw materials out, what do we get?"
"It comes back into the country with added values and we pay high cost for it", he said.
'Surviving' by rubber
Liberia's rubber output stood at 73,769 metric tons in 2025, according to the Central Bank of Liberia, with the product accounting for some 2.2 percent of the country's GDP.
President Joseph Boakai cited a lack of "significant downstream manufacturing opportunities, industrial employment" and the need for "expanded tax revenues and improved foreign exchange earnings" when he issued an executive order in June placing an indefinite ban on the export of unprocessed natural rubber.
Only processed rubber products such as latex concentrate or ribbed smoked sheets will be exported, he said.
However James Sayekea, president of the National Rubber Brokers and Farmers Union of Liberia, told AFP he believed the measure "denies farmers a competitive market to sell their product", with many dependant on the production and sale of unprocessed rubber.
It gives a "monopoly to the few processing companies", such as Firestone, he said.
Well-known Liberian businessman Upjit Singh Sachdeva, who has roots in India and owns Liberia-based Jeety Rubber, is promising to produce the country's first domestically manufactured tyres by 2028.
In the meantime, it is workers such as Somahs who carry the rubber mantle.
Speaking of the land bequeathed by his grandfather and father, Harry Somah summarized: "That is what we are surviving by".