By: Sumner Kongbap
The Registrar of the
Cooperative Department under the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Mr. Newton
Marlin has informed farmers in Moyamba District that the global corona virus
pandemic should not prevent them from cultivating their farms otherwise the
country would be faced with another challenge of hunger stressing that the
global pandemic should not stop farmers from planting, weeding and harvesting
their various crops.
With support from the
government of Sierra Leone and the Ministry of Trade and Industry, the
Department donated preventive materials also trained farmers in basic financial
and management skills and visited some of the farms in the
District.
How to add value to their
produce at the market price, improve production standards, market prices and
the exchange rate were some of the topics discussed as all the speakers
commended the idea of establishing a farmers’ cooperative in the district and
pledged to disseminate the knowledge all over the district.
Mr. Newton Marlin made the
statement in his keynote address on Friday 3rd July 2020 at the
conference room of the Ministry of Agriculture in Moyamba while distributing
COVID-19 preventive gears including facemasks, hand sanitizers, buckets and
other items to prevent the spread of the virus in addition to sensitizing the
farmers about the preventive measures as well as the need for them to form
cooperatives that would enable them attract investors to embark on large scale
mechanized farming to make them rich underscoring the need for reliable data to
attract investors and development planners and urged them not to depend on
government reiterating that the cooperative is a very important sector as there
is similarity between it and development.
He affirmed that the
meeting was for farmers to form agricultural cooperatives now, that farmers are
the richest people in the developed world, that continuous training would be
provided for them, that there is need to sensitize youths about cooperatives so
as to catch them young, that a consultant has been hired to review the
Cooperative Policy and Act that is currently ongoing and that now is the time
for them to work even harder while at the same time observing the COVID-19
preventive measures even when farming so as not to contract or spread the
disease.
The registrar of
Cooperatives also informed that there are other cooperatives like fishing,
mining, tenants, traders but not agricultural which has been neglected over the
years, that in developed countries like the United States, Canada, France and
Ireland members of cooperatives put their resources together to achieve a
common goal and recalled that cooperatives were very strong in Sierra Leone
with schools, clinics and other assets and that the Department is working very
hard to reactivate them.
Mr. Merlin went on to
intimate farmers that the Department wants to bring together all the sectors in
farming into the cooperative to among other improve the lives of farmers and
also disclosed plans to reopen the Cooperative Bank, that the visit to review
farmer cooperatives would continue in other parts of the country and
enlightened that Credit Union is the banking wing/sector of cooperatives with
many beneficiaries disclosing that one of the Cooperatives in Freetown makes
over a Le1 billion turnover annually and admonished the farmers to first and
foremost form an executive, followed by an Annual General Meeting and
constitution.
Statements were also made
by the Deputy Registrar of Cooperatives, Mr. Alfred Moseray, the Accountant of
the Cooperative Department, the District Agriculture Officer, Mr. Mohamed
Kamara, Mrs. Mary Bundu of the Moyamba Teachers Cooperative and other
dignitaries.
Highlight of the
interactive meeting was the presentation of the COVID-19 preventive
materials.
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