1. Vegetable Farming:
Rescue Volunteers Sierra Leone (RVSL) will assist farmer cooperatives,
typically consisting of small-scale farmers, to access training, inputs, and
necessary equipment to develop their vegetable farming operations. The
program will prioritize fast-yielding crops that are resistant to pests and
diseases, such as pepper, plantain, and cocoyam. This will enable the groups
to start with minimum cost and best practices, ultimately resulting in increased
yields. They will generate their own seed money to expand. Once the
cooperatives have been trained, they will be able to enter into commercial
farming. Cash crops that will be cultivated include potatoes and maize, which
will be processed into potato chips and animal feed, respectively.
2. Potato Processing for Foreign Markets:
Potato farming is not new to sierra Leone hence most of the small scale
farming engage in it one way or the other. Studies have shown that the
cooperatives can easily be introduced to mechanised potato farming and
processing. This will merge traditional skills with technology to gain maximum
yields in commercial quantities. To sustain this efforts plans are underway to
secure investors and off takers in foreign markets before the start of the project
it is expected that the program will take off within the second quarter in 2024
3. Animal Feed Production:
Afp has a long value chain that can employ enabled bodied men and women
into the agri business from the farm through the factory to the markets. Farm
hands, factory workers, packaging designers sales and distributors. Foreign
investors will be invited to partner local companies to build the capacity of the
citizens by engaging them throughout the value chain where knowledge will be
transferred. Rescue will facilitate acquisition of funding and ready markets.
4. Out-grower Scheme:
RVSL will introduce cooperative farming to communities in which it operates,
building on the successful approach that has been tested in other countries.
Farmer cooperatives have been shown to have a competitive advantage over
individual farmers in terms of market share, bargaining power for inputs, and
attracting aid and assistance from governments and development partners.
They also provide a guarantee for loans as they are organized bodies, posing
lower risks to financial institutions when it comes to loan advancements.
Farmer cooperatives are more attractive to investors for partnerships than
individual farmers. Additionally, research institutions prefer to use farmer
cooperatives to experiment with their research and demonstrate their new
products. Through this program, RVSL seeks to empower small-scale farmers
by supporting the development of farmer cooperatives, creating a sustainable
agricultural system that supports economic growth and poverty reduction in
Sierra Leone.
