By Sorie Ibrahim Fofana
People purporting to be farmers when actually they are not, are going to be weeded out, according to Yatta Samah, the President of the National Federation of Farmers of Sierra Leone.
Yatta was speaking during the weekly press conference by the Ministry of Information and Civic Education held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 10th October this year.
‘’We have different categories of farmers: we have the black plastic farmers those are the ones that have all the documents, registering at the Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Trade etc., but they are not practicing farmers,’’ she said, noting they are more concerned about practicing farmers on the ground.
Yatta said the ‘real’ farmers are not engaged in other trade and that if they are given seeds they would plant them.
She said the Federation has embarked on registering all farmers, taking photos and giving codes. ‘’Anywhere you go with the code, that can identify you as a practicing farmer,’’ Yatta added.
She said there were people who used to go to the Ministry of Agriculture saying they had one thousand farmers, and the ministry would give them fertilizers, seedlings and other agricultural tools as whilst in reality they were just few individuals working in the field. She said they have implemented a strategy ‘to eliminate’ those farmers by undertaking a registration exercise.
Yatta told journalists that they have so far registered seventy-two thousand farmers across the country.
In his address to the press, the Minister of Agriculture, Dr.Henry Kpaka said the President has set up a Presidential Council for Feed Salone, comprising twenty-two members.
Speaking about monitoring mechanisms, the minister said they would have to engage with the councils and the chiefs to monitor those projects that are underway.
He said if someone receives funds from the government for agricultural activities and fails to implement the said activities, they would have to pay the money or be handed over to the Anti-Corruption Commission.
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