Empowering women farmers in cooperative management
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in partnership with the Ministry of Trade and Industry is training 160 (one hundred and sixty) women farmers in cooperative management and governance in order to improve their production capacity, increase income and social cohesion.
The training is a key activity of the project, Promoting Effective Engagement in Agribusiness for Women’s Cooperatives in Sierra Leone, which is being implemented by FAO in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food Security (MAFFS) , Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs, and the Ministry of Trade and Industry.
The project is focused on sensitizing and mobilizing smallholder farmers such as women farmer groups and Agribusiness Centres (ABC) in Koinadugu, Kailahun, Kenema, and Kambia Districts on the concept of cooperatives.
Opportunities and status of project implementation
Presenting the project to stakeholders and beneficiaries in Koinadugu District at the start of the training on Monday, 21 November 2016 in Kabala Town, the National Project Officer, Marie Deen-Nyarkoh explained that the project intends to organize women farmers, build their leadership, management their capacities and create the necessary linkages in terms of access to markets and inputs.
Deen-Nyarkoh also updated the meeting on the background, objective, focus, operational areas, targeted beneficiaries, support package, and progress of the project implementation.
She explained that the project team among other things has developed the profile of women farmer groups and Agro-input dealers in 13 districts; and used the information to establish a database which will be accessible to everyone at all time. She added that 16 farmers groups were identified in four districts to form cooperatives; and they were trained on the identification and development of mini project activities.
Alliance with government development priorities
The District Agriculture Officer in Koinadugu, Bridget Oyah Kamara stated that the project is in line with the President’s Recovery Priorities, which gives MAFFS the task to create ten thousand job opportunities, increase production and productivity, and provide training and demonstrations of new technologies for farmers.
She acknowledged that “FAO has a very good record in forming cooperatives in the country and Koinadugu District is a better example, as most of the cooperative members are very much productive and self-reliant.”
She pledged that MAFFS will continue to be highly involved in the entire project implementation, especially in monitoring to ensure that the beneficiaries undertake the required activities that will yield better result.
The Acting Deputy Registrar in the Department of Cooperative, Ministry of Trade and Industry, Newton Marlin expressed delight over the approach taken by FAO in reviving cooperative ideas. He expressed hope that “the cooperative model will yield an emerging trend that has the potential to remove the women farmers from the poverty that they have been trapped in over the years.”
The Probation and Gender Officer in the Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs, Simeon Menjor, stated that mainstreaming gender issues, especially women empowerment in agriculture will help reduce poverty and other social problems resulting from too much reliance of women on men for survival.
Testimonies on benefits and good practices of cooperative
One of the beneficiaries of the first FAO cooperative program that was introduced in Sierra Leone in the early 1980s, Haja Sundu Marrah testified that her involvement in the cooperative program has enabled her to be independent and capable to take care of her household.
“As a teenager, I was forced into early marriage and my late husband had already got other wives and children, so, I was like a puppet instead of a partner in my marital home” she lamented.
She recounted that women had no saying in making decisions in their homes because men were the breadwinners of their households. She was however boastful that the agribusiness activities through cooperatives has enabled most women in the Koinadugu District to be self-reliant.
Haja Sundu Marrah is now the Chairlady of the Koinadugu Women Vegetable Farmers’ Cooperative with up to 700 members who solely rely on vegetable production as a major source of livelihood. Through her vegetable farming, she has been able to educate six children and has more than ten dependents in her household. Today, she is a celebrated role model on cooperative business in the country.
The training will be conducted in the four districts for a period of 24 days – six days in each – where women groups are being taught on cooperative concept, leadership and management, cooperative legal and regulatory framework, communication, conflict management, business planning and marketing, role of women in cooperatives, importance of savings, audit practices and procedures.
Since the Ebola disease outbreak has already disrupted many farming activities in the country, these selected cooperatives will be provided funds to startup farming activities in the form of mini-projects. Also, they will be linked to various private sector entities with the aim of establishing out grower schemes and contract farming.
It is been anticipated that contract farming and out grower schemes will create steady market opportunities for their produce within the districts and promote value addition to agricultural produce.