A one-day stabex transfer project training workshop on internal control and quality management control system for staff of the ministry of Agriculture and cooperatives members in the eastern region has ended at the ministry’s office in Kenema.
It was organized by the WeltHunger Hilfe, aimed at improving the level of income and well being of farming families in areas targeted by the project through improved production and marketing of cocoa and coffee.
The Ghanaian consultant Samuel Adamado, working with the Agro Eco which has its head office in The Netherlands, said the purpose of the training was to educate the participants on internal and quality control systems in their cooperatives.
Mr Ademado described cooperatives as autonomous associations of persons united voluntarily to meet their economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically controlled business.
He said through certification farmers could secure a good market for small holders to get a fair trade and organic satisfaction, adding that this certification programme would enable farmers to get secured market.
The Ghanaian consultant stated that the training could help the participants to generate money in order to improve the living standards of every Sierra Leonean who is in the cooperative business.
These activities, according to the marketing manager at Welt Hunger Hilfe Alphasu Caulker, were on internal control system and quality management to be incorporated by cooperatives for organic certification.
Mr Caulker stated that organic certification was to bring farmers into organized production of cocoa and coffee.
Mr Philip Morie Rogers, who deputized the District Director of Agriculture, thanked the organizers of the programme, and maintained that organic account was a process in which the farmers would gain a lot, adding that it was useful in cooperatives and called on the participants to put into practices all what they had learnt at the workshop.
Elizabeth Maculker, the chairlady of the Millennium Cocoa Growers’ Cooperative in Kono District, stated that the training was timely and that it would guide them with the relevant skills on how to train their farmers on quality control.
She said before this time farmers had been selling their produce at a cheaper cost and at the same time being cheated by dealers. “But with this training farmers will now be able to know the quality of their produce for better control”, she noted.
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