For the past four days, Civil Society Activists, Private Sector, Government, and Agricultural Experts discussed sustainable agri-food systems transformation in Sierra Leone at the Headquarters of the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO)
The Agri-Food System Transformation Initiative is an initiative developed out of a partnership between the Government of Sierra Leone, FAO, European Union (EU) and Agrifood System stakeholders, with the objective of improving the planning, design, investment and accountable delivery of interventions for sustainable and inclusive agrifood systems’ transformation of the country.
Experts and Researchers in the field of Agriculture made presentations on various topics ranging from safe food to agroecology on which participants formed the basis of their discussion.
The FAO Representative in Sierra Leone Saeed Abubakar Bancie said that a sustainable agri-food system is very important than ever before owing to the current crisis the world is facing, pointing out that even before COVID, there have been food challenges in the world which have been compounded by COVID and the current Russia-Ukraine war.
“With agrifood systems, some of these challenges will be overcome. Four thematic groups have been identified for you to discuss,” the FAO Representative stated, noting that this is a government-led process for which he thanked the government for their coordination.
In a presentation on Safe food and nutrition in Sierra Leone, Martha Williams highlighted that the major challenges to food insecurity in Sierra Leone include low food consumption and dependency on food import, food affordability due to hikes in the prices of staple food, and food accessibility due to high cost of transportation, low storage, and low food processing and preservation technique.
Other presentations on agricultural value chain for sustainable food systems, agroecology and marine, fisheries and aquaculture for livelihood were made at the four days workshops.
This workshop is a build-up to a high-level meeting that will be chaired by the Vice President, Dr Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh at the New Brookfield Hotel on Tuesday 22nd November
