Sierra Leone News: SLeCAD Empowers Farmer Based Organisations
The Sierra Leone Chamber of Agribusiness (SLeCAD) has concluded agribusiness, agro-industrialization and financial principle training for Farmer Based Organizations (FBOs) across the country.
The Chamber trained 40 FBOs in Kono District, 20 in Port Loko,60 in Bombali. Similar trainings were held in all districts across the country.
The first session of the training was held in Kono, which marked the launching of the training across the country.
The training was attended by key district stakeholders including the District Agriculture Officer in Kono, the Chief Administrator of the Koidu New Sembehun City Council and the media, among a host of others.
Addressing stakeholders and the beneficiaries of FBOs from across the fourteen chiefdoms of Kono District, the Agricbusiness Value Chain Officer of SLeCAD, Sylvester Bona said the project was aimed at improving agribusiness development, financial management, value chain and industrial development skills of agribusiness operators, including farmers working along the value chain.
According to him, the trainings specific target topics on entrepreneurship, bookkeeping, financial management and access to finance.
He said that the trainings would help increase agricultural productivity in the District, help provide jobs and make the agriculture sector attractive to youth.
He said that by bringing FBOs together would help create a platform for networking with other farmer organizations in the country.
He disclosed that SLeCAD established district offices across the country where farmers could access information, discuss issues affecting farming communities and resolutions that should be forwarded to government or policymakers for better agricultural production.
According to the Agricbusiness Value Chain Officer, they were expecting that after the trainings farmers would have been better capacitated in bookkeeping and improve on their production skills.
He said it would also help farmer organizations to develop value addition scheme in their different productions and also help them to practise standardization for better marketing.
He said plans are underway to train additional farmer organizations in Kono and other district across the country, thus encouraging farmers to register with SLeCAD.
He disclosed that SLeCAD was sourcing funding from GIZ and the World Bank through SCADEP.
The Development Advisor for GIZ under its Employment Promotion Programme (EPP) attached to SLeCAD, Diego Barreiro told participants that they are supporting the project to help build the capacity of farmers as part of their strides to complement government’s efforts to achieving food self-sufficiency, improving agribusiness and providing jobs through skills training.
District Agriculture Officer in Kono, Lamin Mbogba thanked SLeCAD for building the capacity of farmers, and called on them to put into practice the skills they have gain.
Chief Administrator of the Koidu New Sembehun City Council, Ahmed M. Lahai described the training of farmer organizations as timely, and expressed gratitude to SLeCAD for undertaking such a project.
He observed that agriculture is the backbone of every country’s economy. He said that youth constitute the largest number of the country’s population but many have taken attention away from agriculture.
He called on participating youth to put more efforts into agriculture, which he said is a lifetime enterprise that would help better their lives.
A representative from the Apex Bank, Foday Sesay trained farmers on access to finance and banking in community banks in the district.
The training was climaxed by the awards of certificates to each member of the participating organizations.
Similar ceremony was replicated in all the districts across the country.
