By Precious D. Freeman
The Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) has broken grounds for the Triumph Garden Project which is a continuation of response to COVID-19, but is now directed at over 2,000 households and is implemented by Agro Tech Liberia.
Speaking during the ceremony held recently at the Agriculture College of the University of Liberia, Agriculture Minister Jeanine Milly Cooper said the government is undertaking the project because anytime communities are hit with crisis, there is no surety where food will come because there are no alternative means.
According to the Minister, besides encouraging Liberians to at least plant some crops in their backyards to prevent food insecurity, the project will also enable Liberians go by the President’s mandate which says ‘Eat what you grow and grow what you eat.’
“Agro Tech is a dynamic organization that is always bringing up ideas, so they came together with other partners like the STAR-P, MOA and some young entrepreneurs asking how they can help the communities and to also encourage young people when it comes to agriculture,” Minister Cooper explained.
She expressed joy with the level of creativity that the Agro-Tech is bringing to the nation adding that the garden project is just one of the many projects that they are partnering with in the ministry.
She therefore encouraged other agriculture related organizations to do more because as she put it, this is the tiny beginning of what they are all going to do together and promised the government’s support financially in developing new project ideas.
The National Project Coordinator for Star-P, Ansu Abraham Metzger said agriculture is not just about farmers but also consumers and that the MOA is committed to actively raising the quality of every Liberian through food sufficiency and sustainability.
He added that the MOA through its project, the Star-P has a developmental objective that is to increase agricultural productivity and commercialization, noting, “Last year, the government through MOA put into place a COVID response plan that focused on food security through supporting smallholder farmers and agro-SMEs with Agriculture inputs.”
According to the Executive Director for Agro-Tech, Jonathan Stewart, Agro-Tech Liberia is a youth agricultural organization that endeavors and is working with young people in making sure that they contribute to their own food security.
“And we make sure that young people collectively participate and involve themselves in agriculture and Agro business for us to be able to reduce hunger, poverty and unemployment,” he said.
“The Triumph Garden Project is the urban food security initiative that is supported fully by the MOA through the Star-P program and the communities to have kitchen gardens and to set up schools’ gardens,” he explained.
He added that they have a component of the garden project that is directed towards training three or four community organizations that will work with them and give support in setting up community gardens for income initiatives.
“We are also going to be producing seedlings here at our site that will be distributed at our households and homes across Fendell, Careysburg, Mount Barclay and the Paynesville areas,” he said.
Mr. Stewart explained that the team’s interaction with families will be based on asking them whether or not they need some assistance when it comes to seeds and if there will be recruitment as well as the setting up the kitchen gardens.
“We will also be working with the Military Barracks so that they can be able to make their own garden and be having some sustainable food security nutrition in the camp,” he added.