Report by Augustine Bill Kollie: augustinekollie87@gmail.com
Monrovia, Liberia: Beneta Karko is a local farmer in Nyonben town, Grand Bassa County; producing marketable food, including vegetables and other nutritious produce for income.
She has received technical training in crops production provided by Concern Worldwide through the Partners Program funded by the European Union in Liberia.
Beneta became a member of the Smallholder farmers group in 2018 as part of the five years Agriculture Road-map to Nutrition and Entrepreneurship-Partners Program funded by the European Union with the aims of improving productivity and sustainability of nutrition sensitive agriculture in seven counties of Liberia.
Before 2018, her farming produce were limited, and only meant for family consumption; but, Beneta now produces and sells more Plantains, eddos, Potatoes, pineapples and Cassava to finance her children’s education.
Well, I thank God for Concern worldwide and the EU because before, we use to buy food before me and my children can eat. But now, the people teach us how to grow the four star food like the energy food, body building food, the protective food and they told us to eat the best part of the food.
And most of us in this town now can sell the food we grow to send our children to school but it was not like this before so am happy”
About thirty Smallholder farmers in Nyonben town are benefiting from the European Union technical assistance program being implemented by Concern Liberia and other partners, which seeks to insure improved methods of growing crops for increased income generation.
The trainings are meant to make farmers more resilient to food and economic shocks and to also have improved livelihoods through participation in sustainable agriculture value chains activities.
Six thousand-six hundred smallholder farmers from 220 communities are expected to benefit from the interventions across the seven Counties. 109 farmer Assistants (Male: 107; Female: 02) have been selected and trained in good agricultural practices. These Farmer Assistants (FAs)are providing extension services to fellow smallholder farmers.
One of the program ideas is to promote Agri business by strengthening the value chains of five strategic crops( Cassava, Groundnut, pineapple, plantain and Moringa) so as to meet the required food quality standards for human consumption thus increasing the capacity of smallholder farmers to access finance and improve agriculture productivity.
DISCLAIMER:
The contents and image in this publication belong to this website(www.okfm.com.lr) and does not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union Delegation in Liberia.
