The Minister of Agriculture Food Security and Forestry Dr. Sam Sesay has recently concluded a sensitization meeting with members of the steering committee in Bo, on an 11 million dollars worth of diversified food production project that would soon kick off.
Explaining the background of the project, Dr Sesay maintained that the project was part of government’s vision to maximize food variety in the country through support from government and funds from the Islamic Development Bank.
He emphasized that, the implementation would strictly be based on the new government’s vision for agricultural development that would not only expand people’s perception for food security and poverty alleviation, but to also include the human development status.
“Agriculture is the back bone and engine of the socio-economic development of any country” he stated.
The Minister said the new agriculture policy in Sierra Leone contains provision of crop diversification and better production mechanism for quality yield of the various crops.
He noted that, the added value in the food chain is to enhance processing techniques to transform crops into different food variety with the provision of preservation facilities to make seasonal foods permanently edible all year round.
Giving an insight of the project, the Coordinator of diversified food project Dr. Foday Bangura said the thrust of the programme is to develop infrastructure through rehabilitation and development of inland valley swamps, feeder roads, village markets, drying floors, storage facilities and aqua culture.
He explained that the key component of the project would include input of tools or equipments, small ruminants and poultry.
He intimated that the project facilities would be offered to farmers on extremely favourable credit conditions, in complete absence of material collateral.
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