Bilateral Meeting with The Honourable Alexander Nuetah, Minister for Agriculture of the Republic of Liberia

Monrovia - The FAO Director-General, Dr QU Dongyu, met today with The Honourable Alexander Nuetah, Minister for Agriculture of the Republic of Liberia, together with representatives from national authorities in the agriculture sector.

The Minister welcomed the Director General and thanked him for accepting the invitation to visit the country. He expressed appreciation for FAO’s support on the launch of the One Country One Priority Product (OCOP) and Hand-in-Hand (HiH) initiatives and reaffirmed the Government of the Liberia’s continued commitment to support FAO’s work.

The Minister informed of the government’s work with coffee farmers to promote Liberica coffee under the OCOP and HiH initiatives to attract investors to improve agricultural production, to manage post-harvest loss through building of storage facilities and develop capacity for smallholder farmers with new technological techniques. The Minister informed that the Ministry of Agriculture continued to struggle to deliver basic needs, however, the OCOP and HiH initiatives would support government to respond to present challenges.

The Heads of the Forestry Development Authority, Environmental Protection Authority, and National Fisheries and Aquaculture Authority noted in turn the challenges that existed in the various sectors, including the high cost of fish feed and increased production costs for smallholder farmers in the fisheries and aquaculture sector thus hindering growth.  The high-level representatives also informed that low production due to lack of technology for farmers also affected production, together with climate change challenges that had prompted the government to seek climate-smart options for irrigation purposes and land rehabilitation. For the forestry sector, increased collaboration with FAO was requested including the inclusion of forestry in FAO country project activities to strengthen and sustain existing collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture. Finally, the representatives indicated that under the HiH initiative, the government hoped to attract investors across all agricultural sectors.

The Director General thanked the Minister and Heads of the related authorities for the warm welcome and congratulated Liberia for its current stability, which would attract investors for the development of the agriculture sector. He indicated the importance of regulated land design and use through policy formulation to increase agricultural production. He also emphasized the importance of the use of science and technology and innovation and training for farmers to improve and accelerate agrifood system transformation. In this regard, the Director-General confirmed the commitment of FAO to provide support through the Office of Innovation.

The Director-General further informed that FAO offered various platforms to support Members and encouraged the government to make use of the OCOP and HiH initiatives, and advocated local solutions for local problems by empowering local farmers through government supported initiatives. He informed of the importance of close collaboration within ministries with a holistic and integrated approach to address cross-cutting challenges. He indicated that OCOP should also be used to improve quality of products to increase their market value and differentiate Liberian products.

He further encouraged the government to join the Digital Villages and Green Cities initiatives to improve farmers' income and to mitigate adverse environment impacts caused by climate change.