Concord Times (Freetown)
Ben Samuel Turay
14 January 2009
Freetown — Minister of agriculture, forestry and food security has said that agriculture is the mainstay of the economy of the 16 ECOWAS states.
"Agriculture is the gateway to bringing development and driving hunger in any country," Dr. Joseph Sam Sesay disclosed during a week-long meeting with other agriculture partners from Burkina Faso at Hotel 5-10 in Freetown. He said his priority is to see his ministry working with other organizations to push food security forward in the country.
He said that as many the people in ECOWAS countries are farmers, a fact that should make farmers the primary focus for poverty alleviation. Unfortunately, he said, farmers are less considered in terms of assistance to develop the sector.
Dr. Sesay recalled that in 1989, the government of Sierra Leone accepted to implement the structural adjustment programme, which he said led to the introduction of privatization. The intervention of the private sector worked for the trade and commercial service sectors, but not for agriculture.
He said by the APC government policy, the definition of the private sector should not be exclusive of the agriculture sector, stressing that the farmers are to be mobilized and empowered to lead the sector.
The minister therefore urged for the massive mobilization of farmer-based associations to form what he called the "grand association" that will be the national platform for advocating and administrating farm affairs in Sierra Leone.
The week-long meeting is to map out strategies for the development of agriculture in West Africa, said Ndiogou Fall, President of ROPPA, the apex organization for small farmers and agricultural producers based in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. In particular, the meeting was held to address problems such as the food crisis, floods and desertification experienced in 2008.
Fall observed that the government of Sierra Leone's positive action of providing the basic needs of farmers such as capacity building, infrastructural development and the elevation of budgetary allocation to the agriculture sector from 1.6% in 2008 to 7.7% in 2009, is a manifestation that the country is well on the path of fulfilling the dreams of ROPPA for the development of agriculture in every state in West Africa.
President of the Sierra Leone farmers association, PC Bai Shebora Somano Kapen, in his statement said the meeting was to show how agriculture and trade are interrelated and important to the development of a nation's economy.
He said the session also aimed at enlightening the participants about the diverse roles of ROPPA and the World Trade Organization (WTO) as players in the international trade of agricultural products and the sets of rules covering trade liberalization and tariffs.
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There has been a fiftteen year movement to introduce a program called for " For The Peolple Of Sierra Leone, Inc.Inc. It is Agriculture development! My name is Joe Louis, Program Director for Stepping Out For Christ Ministries, Inc. At the last monment my trip was canceled and missed the ECOWAS meeting in Sierra Leone. for more information look at our web-site at www.unitycommunityusa.org
Joe Louis 687-521-0524