By Throble Kaffa Suah, freelance Journalist
Liberia’s western Grand Cape Mount County has for the first time in 45 years launched a Cooperative for smallholder farmers.
The first of such programme was initiated by an Israeli company, ARIMICO (Agriculture and Mining Company) in 1973 during the administration of the late President William Richard Tolbert.
Dwuamatombo Village Community Multipurpose Cooperative (DVC-MPC) was given birth to recently in Madina Town, Garwula District in Grand Cape Mount County.
Dwuamatombo is a word in the Gola vernacular, meaning, “our years of work”.
But some key stakeholders such as senior policy-makers, lawmakers, Cabinet Ministers, Land Authorities and local officials invited were conspicuously absent.
The absence of United Nations Agencies including World Food Programme (WFP), Food and Agriculture Organization, World Bank among others did not however dent the spirit of the locals.
The ceremony attracted chiefs, elders and ordinary people from all walks of life in the county turning out in their numbers demonstrating commitment and ownership of the process, which belongs to them.
Mr. Alfred Quayjandii, Interim Programme Manager of the Cooperative, urged Liberians to place more emphasis on agriculture because economic justice is food security, which is prudent for every human being.
He indicated that the acceleration of food production to fight hunger and promote food security for sustainable growth and development is to demonstrate government and partners that smallholder farmers in Grand Cape Mount have grouped themselves into a cooperative.
Mr. Quayjandii said in time past and now, the Liberian economy has been relying on investors because it is faced with numerous challenges in food importation.
He said that the President had to negotiate with business people when Liberians have the ability to plant and grow food.
He further that because of this, the Dwuamatombo Village has mobilized communities’ smallholder farmers in rice, cassava, plantain, potatoes, eddoes, cocoa, coffee, palm and vegetable production and it is working with them on how to carry out awareness on making use of the soil.
For this reason, the Dwuamatombo’s Programme Manager noted that the time has come for Liberians to gradually move from communal rudiment and shift to mechanize farming, which has become the order of the day.
“Our attention was drawn to what happening in Nimba, Bong and Lofa Counties. There our compatriots have engaged the sector. If those Liberians can do same, while not Cape Mountaineers? Therefore, we have taking self-initiative as everything not politics,” Mr. Quayjandii observed.
The Dwuamatombo Village Community Multipurpose Cooperative (DVC-MPC) is made-up of rural dwellers or Cape Mountainian who believe that agriculture is their way of life.
Organizers of the farmers’ Cooperative are from villages and towns in Madina Township, Garwula District and elsewhere in Grand Cape Mount County.
Deputizing for Agriculture Minister Mogana Flomo was Madam Famatta Kamara, County Agriculture Coordinator (CAC).
She admonished Cape Mountainians to take full ownership and advantage of their process, because no human being can live or survive without food.
She said the formation of cooperative for smallholder farmers to engage in crop production such as rice, cocoa, coffee, palm oil and vegetables through mechanized farming.
Madina Town Chief, Folley Sherman praised fellow villagers and people of the town who proffered the idea to form a cooperative, something he stated has not happened in the last 45 years.
“When AGRIMICO came with this we used to feed ourselves because during those days farmers were planting and growing crops to the extent that many people did not have time for imported or frozen food compared to now,” Chief Sherman said.