By Foday Moriba Conteh
In a bid to make evidence-based decisions to enhance investments in aggregation, processing and market linkages, which are crucial to advancing the country’s agricultural sector and supporting economic development, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture Food and Security, with funding from the European Union has on Monday 30th September, 2024 concluded a validated workshop on the Feed Salone Pillar 3 Operational Plan.
The validation, which took place at Family Kingdom, Aberdeen in Freetown, focused on enhancing food security and promoting inclusive economic growth by improving aggregation, processing and market linkages for agricultural products.
Harding Wayango, Assistant FAO Rep in Charge of Program stated that early this year they received a request from the Agriculture Ministry for them to support the Ministry develop an investment plan for Pillar 3 on the “Feed Salone” program.
He said they have started the process three months ago with lot of consultations with key partners and they later agreed to bring experts together to look at the findings and see how they can validate and strengthen recommendations for the operational plan to become a document with a wide range of input.
“This activity will be conducted as a participatory multi-stakeholder validation workshop building on the existing to make evidence-based decisions focused on enhancing investment for aggregation, processing and market linkages in Sierra Leone,” Harding Wayango furthered.
He emphasized that in order to ensure that farm products penetrate to the market, they have been working with the Ministry to ensure that rural areas where production is taking place have good feeder roads, good food chain system which will help farmers to generate more income.
He therefore recommended that private sector players start to work on rural feeder roads so that when farmers harvest their products they can have good roads and can easily have access to the market.
Manti Tarawally, Minister of State, Office of the Vice President, stated that it is a gathering about food systems, but is also essentially about people in need and the need to fulfill the most basic of human rights which is the right to food.
She described the food system as interconnected systems and processes that influence nutrition, food, health, community development and agriculture. The Minister of State added that food system includes all processes and infrastructure involved in feeding a population like farming, livestock, harvesting among others.
Manti Tarawally further intimated that food systems are complex entities that affect diets, human health, and a range of other outcomes including economic growth, natural resources, environmental resiliency and socio-cultural factors.
“Today in Sierra Leone as a result of the global economic crisis resulting from wars and the global pandemic and the ongoing climate changes, 82 % of our population is food insecure. And among those households, 18% are severely food insecure, which is an improvement from the last assessment but nevertheless still high. Kenema, Falaba, Koinadugu, Karene and Tonkolili districts have the highest levels of vulnerability,” she stated.
The good news, she continued, is that the Government has prioritized Food Systems Transformation alongside Feed Salone to ensure delivery of healthy safe and nutritious foods in both sustainable and equitable ways. According to her, 8 pathways have been developed to achieve a robust Food Systems architecture.
Deputy Minister of Agriculture 1, Dr. Theresa Tenneh Dick said: “I am a farmer, everyone has to come together to feed our country because food is an essential commodity for man’s existence.” She further said a sustainable agri-food system delivers food security and nutrition for all in such a way that the economic, social and environmental bases to generate food security and nutrition for future generations are not compromised.
Dr. Theresa Tenneh Dick added that the Feed Salone Strategy aims to boost food security and inclusive economic growth in Sierra Leone through investments.
“The objective of Pillar 3 is to enhance the agri-food system’s capacity to aggregate what is produced, process it including post-harvest handling, primary processing and final processing, whether artisanal or industrial and sell the raw, value-added or processed products in national and international markets” she also intimated.
The implementation plan, she maintained, seeks to provide a pathway to achieve the objectives of Pillar 3 through the contributions of all actors in the sector, through enhancing impact of investments in the field; as well as making the cost of local produce more competitive.
“In Sierra Leone, the Government intends to mobilize investments and enhance policies to boost agricultural productivity as part of its plan to enhance food security and inclusive economic growth through the Feed Salone Strategy,” she ended.
