Liberia
[Remarks as Prepared]
It is great to be here today to appreciate the accomplishments and impacts of the cooperatives, farmers, businesses, and volunteers who participated in the USAID Agriculture Sustainability Activity.
Utilizing the expertise of international and local volunteers, Liberian cooperatives, farmers, and processors were able to increase rice and cassava production and processing and grow their businesses to provide livelihood for themselves and many others. That’s quite an accomplishment!
The activity’s focus on increasing domestic production and processing of rice and cassava came at a particularly critical time for the country and your results complement the Government of Liberia’s efforts to address food security and strengthen the resilience of Liberian farmers.
The results also showcase the power of farmer-to-farmer volunteer relationships in unlocking Liberia’s agricultural development potential.
The world over, this is how farmers grow and improve their product…through exchange of information and experience…across the fence or the field…neighbor to neighbor, business to business, farmer to farmer.
Since its start in 1985, USAID’s Farmer-to-Farmer program has helped more than 20,000 volunteers to support over 136 million people in 116 countries catalyzing agricultural development through practitioner-to-practitioner exchange.
One of the biggest benefits of the Farmer-to-Farmer approach is that growth and development does not stop at the end of the exchange. Your demonstrated success will inspire other farmers and cooperative members to improve practices; further increasing production quality and market access for agricultural products.
But the farmers of Liberia can’t be expected to solve the challenges of the agriculture sector and food security alone. More information and technical assistance are needed from all partners if Liberia is to reach its full agricultural potential.
Farmers need timely market information to help make decisions about cultivation, harvest and market delivery. The Ministry of Agriculture is completing a rapid food security, nutrition and market assessment that will provide important information to characterize the current; however, consistent market data collection and distribution is also required to enable farm and agribusiness development and growth.
Another challenge for Liberian farmers is access to locally sourced, reasonably priced, quality inputs. For example, there is no certified seed bank in Liberia forcing farmers to use expensive imported seed or seed of unreliable quality. Government of Liberia support to certification would allow the Liberian private sector to provide higher quality seed and greatly increase crop yield.
The development partners have a role too. For our part, the U.S. Government’s partnership with Liberia is focused on achieving inclusive, economic development across the country. Specifically, agricultural development is a pillar of our strategy to increase incomes, create jobs and support food security.
In partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture, USAID will be expanding our efforts to increase on-farm production and processing and reduce food insecurity through new training and technical assistance activities supporting smallholder farmers. We will be expanding access to finance to enable agribusinesses to expand their operations and market share. And, we’ll be providing marketing, business planning and other business support services to help entrepreneurs get started and newer businesses to expand.
I want to once again appreciate the collaborative efforts of all partners in the Agriculture Sustainability Activity. I think Liberia has proved the effectiveness of our Farmer-to-Farmer model. We all have a role to play and when we work together, share information openly and model success for others, we all benefit from the resulting agricultural development progress.
Thank you for your collaboration and partnership. I wish you best of luck.