Gold has experienced a tremendous turnaround, and the impressive rise in gold mining activity in rural Sierra Leone in recent years is largely due to poverty and the increasing international price of gold that has galvanised thousands of miners into Copyright © 2011 John Wiley Sons, Ltd. J. Int. Dev. 23, 1080–1099 (2011) DOI: /jid Agriculture and Gold Mining in Sierra Leone 1087 seasonal gold mining .