Ballah Town, Bomi County – More than a hundred smallholder farmers living around the forest range of Bomi County are now benefitting from a direct market linkage for their 25 hectares cassava farm.
This is happening through the intervention of the Liberia Forestry Sector Program (LFSP) “sub-component 2.4” that is being implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture’s Project Management Unit.
Under the program, the farmers will sell their harvested cassava tubers to Falama Incorporated, a local agro-processing company.
LFSP came about following an agreement between the Liberian and Norwegian Governments in 2014 to improve land use planning, support existing and new protected areas, enhance people’s livelihoods through community forestry and place agriculture on a more sustainable footing to reduce deforestation pressures.
According to the Coordinator of the project, Saah A. David, Jr., six government entities including the Forestry Development Authority (FDA), Ministry of Agriculture (MOA), Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME), Land Authority, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo-Information Services (LIGIS) will serve as implementing arms of LFSP.
He said that the Ministry of Agriculture and its Project Management Unit, lead the agricultural component of the LFSP- an area which is alternative for livelihood for people living around the forest.
He further that the MOA-Project Management Unit, West Africa Agricultural Productivity Program (WAAP) and the Smallholder Tree Crop Revitalization Support Project (TCRSP) for food and tree crops in Bomi, Grand Gedeh and River Gee Counties on the rice, cassava, and cocoa value chains are implementing this sub-component of LFSP.
The National Coordinator of the Smallholder Agriculture Transformation and Agribusiness Revitalization Project (STAR), J. Cyrus Saygbe speaking at the launch of the partnership recently in Bomi recently said that under the MOA-WAAP food crop component of the LFSP, MOA-Project Management Unit contracted the services of Compassion Fund, a local NGO to facilitate and work with the farmers to cultivate the 25 hectares of land through the memorandum of understanding with the landowners.
Saygbe added that the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) supplied improved cassava varieties to the farmers. The supply was followed by the provision of tools and technical support to ensure best practices of using standardized technology, Saygbe said.
He further added that through the vision of the new leadership of MOA to promote market linkages for smallholder farmers, PIU engaged Falama Inc., a local agro-processing company that has agreed to buy harvested cassava tubers from the farmers.
As for her part, Falama CEO, Angie Howard, disclosed that through the memorandum of understanding with the farmers, her company is building the technical capacity of the farmers by training them into the secondary processing of cassava products that include flour, starch, fufu and farina.
Madam Howard thanked MOA-PIU for linking her company to the farmers, nothing that her business had had difficulty in getting cassava from Bomi County.
Also speaking, the World Bank’s Senior Agricultural Specialist, Jeanette Sutherland termed the partnership between Bomi County’s Farmers and Falama Incorporated as a step in the right direction to improving the livelihood of farmers in the region.
“The partnership agreement between Falama Incorporated and Bomi County Cassava farmers is therefore a step in the right direction. By partnering with the community, Falama Incorporated serves as a reliable market outlet for farmers from Ballah Town while the farmers also benefit from skills transfer in cassava value addition, technical assistance in use of sustainable and modern cultivation technologies, and assistance in accessing farming input. Falama Incorporated also has access to a reliable source of quality cassava to supply its plant’s processing needs,” Sutherland said.
She said that the World Bank extends its gratitude to Liberia on the passage of the Land Rights and added that the guarantee of the land rights will provide further opportunities and incentives to Liberian farmers to invest in their farming activities as entrepreneurs but in a manner that will guarantee the sustainability of the Land.
The World Bank facilitates the funding mechanism through the PFMU of the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning. Its directly supervises the implementation of the project on behalf of the Government of Norway.
MOA-Deputy Director for Research and Extension, Sayma Syrenius Cephas commended all parties who he said worked to improve the living conditions of farmers by linking farmers to reliable markets.
“I am absolutely overwhelmed to see what is going out here. Never before I have seen such farm in Bomi County, every time we heard about Bomi, it was either food problem or little market but today you have demonstrated that you people are ready to give your county a new picture,” said Cephas. “Those who said that the people of Bomi County cannot farm will now be the same people that will say that your county is a new area.”
