MAFFS Communications Unit
Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Food Security today addressed the Press on the transformation of Agricultural Business Centres commonly known as ABCs across the country. In his address he outlined some of the key issues facing the ABCs and the need to align them to the Ministry’s objectives under the President’s post Ebola reconstruction programme and the Key Result Area 1 which requires the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food Security to create 10,000 jobs for young people across key value chains in agriculture.
The Minister stated that this press conference is being undertaken by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food Security and the SCP GAFSP project to talk about the Agricultural Business Centres (ABCs) and the prospects for their transformation and relevance to their local communities. He went on to confirm that there is a need to address the problems that affect agricultural development in the country. For a month now, the Ministry and its partners have been looking at the ABCs, the purpose of their creation and what they have contributed to agricultural development. Let me say that the concept of creating the ABCs is a very good one, he added. The purpose for which they were developed is to enhance agricultural production and to promote food security. They are there to render services to the people to increase production and productivity. They were built under the Small Holder Commercialization Project. In 2009, we had 193 and by 2015 we have 394 of these units across the country. These units are owned by MAFFS and the communities where they are located.
There has been a lot of press coverage on the ABCs so they are not a new concept. The Ministry takes full responsibility for them and what we want to see is improvements in their performance and service delivery. We would therefore like to retain 52 ABCs out of the 394 – four per District. The reason being that the Ministry would have the capacity to manage these 52, and if on the long run we decide that the private sector has to be called in to manage them, the Ministry will need to provide oversight. The Ministry will decide on what to do with the rest of the ABCs. Some of them are run by communities and we see no ned to take it away from them, others would be taken over by investors but at the end of the day, we want to avoid the ABCs becoming a white elephant. They are built for a purpose and that is to promote agricultural activities wherever they are found. The effectiveness and efficiency must be followed through as the order of the day for the ABCs. The four that we choose per District would be strategically located. They would be placed strategically in densely populated areas where there is heavy agricultural productivity in the District.
The ABCs should have linkage with Farmer Based Organizations and individual farmers. Anybody who needs services should be able to access them through their ABCs. There should be strong link between the ABCs and the District Agricultural Officers. The ABCs would therefore become the HUB of agricultural activities and must be able to meet the farmers’ needs. The Ministry of Agriculture should be the servants of the farmers and they are supposed to serve the needs of the farmers.
We want the press to know where these ABCs would be located so that they can pass on the information to the people. We wat them to make use of the facilities. I thought of linking the ABCs to farmers’ groups and they should become learning and knowledge centres. In our transformation plans, we must be able to get them to take questions from and provide answers for the farmers. They should be able to deal with issues such as cultural practices, diseases etc in a quick and timely manner just so that they are kept abreast with new methods and ways of doing things. I envisage a situation where each ABC would have a range of experts attached to it and a manager who has experience of how to run a business centre. This will not only help to strengthen and give comfort to the District Agricultural Officers but they would provide services additional to them. We will try our level best to make sure that the 52 ABCs that we are choosing now are relevant to our societies and that they can contribute to promoting food security, reduce poverty and promote prosperity to our farmers.
Answering a question posed by one journalist, Minister Monty Jones confirmed that he had made it a policy directive that 80% of all devolved funds must go directly to farmers to support their activities on the farms and to ensure that they increase production and productivity. He informed the press that he had announced this policy directive at meetings he has been having with farmers themselves and also in the presence of the District Agriculture Officers and the Local Councils and Paramount Chiefs. This information must go out so that the farmers are aware of the level of support that this Government is providing for them. He also informed the press that in keeping with this policy directive, he presented cheques to two farmers umbrella bodies, National Federation of Farmers in Sierra Leone (NAFFSL) and the Sierra Leone Women’s Farmers Forum (SLEWOFF) last week and also to the Koinadugu Vegetable Farmers Association. He concluded by saying that the Ministry’s intentions are very good as they contribute to growth and national development through open and transparent service delivery. The purposes for building the ABCs at the outset was excellent. The transformation of a focussed group of 52 ABCs that he has now announced is to make service delivery at these units more effective and efficient. In addition to the transformation of the ABCs, the community banks and other financial institutions that are being put in place would help to engender prosperity for farmers and assist them to reduce post-harvest waste as they sell their goods to local processing companies and rice mills.
The Minister also announced that the Ministry would provide seed money for young people to become self-employed in agriculture by providing services along the value chain. This seed money would be provided through a project called SCaDEP. Young people would be encouraged to put together their business plans and once evaluated as viable, they will be given the money to start their business in agriculture with some further support and supervision from the Ministry. In this way, agriculture would become attractive to young people as it would help them create wealth for themselves and employment for others.
