Fellow’s Meetup in Bong County

The meetup was held at Phebe, Suakoko, Bong County, April 30, from 3pm to 6pm. A total of ten participants attended the meetup including seven males and three females. Three of the participants were farmers from the Tuenkpan Farmers Association in Sonoyea District.

The topic covered at the meetup was “challenges affecting rural farmers’ access to markets in Liberia”. This topic was developed (as suggested by meetup participants) from the previous meetup under the theme “post harvest management with regards to food security in Liberia”. From the discussion, it was clear that rural farmes’ access to markets in Liberia has been hindered by the lack of direct access to markets due to inadequate road and transport facilities, and as a results a middle man trade has resulted leaving farmers with little or no alternative means of selling their products for better economic returns worth the investment. And because of this many farmers in the coco and food crops production had started to shift to rubber farming/production until lately. This experience was shared by the three farmers representatives from the “Tuenkpan Farmers Association”. For example, due to middle man trade in coco, farmers had to sell their coco between 5LD/kg and 2500LD/6-7acres of coco farm. Furthermore, due to lack of maintenance of these farms, the 6-7acres of coco farm production rate dropped from 1500kg (rate prior to the civil war) to 350kg (current production rate).

However, the idea of farmers association is beginning to breed renewed courage and hope to rural farmers. The farmers representatives at the meetup explained that with the help of an American organization called, ACDI/VOCA, the Tuenkpan Farmer Association in Sonoyea is one of several rural farmers association formed in targeted communities in Nimba, Bong and Lofa Counties. The farmers further explained that ACDI/VOCA has supported trainings in coco production, processing and storage and has linked them to international coco exporters from the US and local buyers of food crops in Liberia, including the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and local super markets. And because of this farmers in these areas are begaining to regain courage and hope for the coco and food crop production which were being abandoned for rubber. For example, the farmers disclosed that for the first time, coco farmers in sonoyea ( through the Tuenkpan Farmers Association) was able to sell directly to coco exporters at US1.70/Kg ( 119LD equivilent) during the last coco harvest, FAO has begun to buy seed rice, and leading supermarkets are now buying exotic vegetables from the association. Also, the number of coco farmers is beginning to increase and the membership of the association has increased from 50 to 107 over the one year period. However, major concerns of the association remain protection against bigger potential competitors, and issues of sustainability. Though these issues have been developed as questions for InfoSpring, other field practioners made some recommendations to the farmers, including:

• land acquisition: that the association secure land where members of the aaosication can be afforded the opportunity of increasing/maintaing access to land due to the growing complexities of community land disputes in Liberia. this should serve as an encouragement and reduce burden of farmers lack of access to farming land
• Sustainability concerns need to be discussed with members of the association so as to identify actions/measures for generating funds other than the 10% commission received from buyers (exporters); other sources of revenue generation, such as service fees/dues needs to be explored
• Awareness needs to be carried out on the activities of the association and the benefits it offers to farmers
• Standard in the quality of coco needs to be maintained to ensure credibility with buyers
• Rules and regulation needs to be adopted for the effective and efficient operation of the association
• x% of the association divident needs to be apportion for community social development which will improve the association relationship with the community.

I considered the discussion very practical and participatory.Such discussion mechanism complements M & E efforts as to what works and recommends lessons learnt from best practices. The approach of conducting meetups at the community level is now been seen as an effective way of evaluating development works for improvement while commiting very little resources, and the sharing of best practices at first hand with other development practitioners. The experience of the farmers in Sonoyea has proven that rural farmers’ access to market can be improved by promoting/strengthening farmers association.

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