Agriculture Minister Jeanine Milly Cooper, on Saturday March 20, launched an urban garden project which targets 2000 beneficiaries – military, secondary schools students, agriculture students, women groups and urban residents.
The project seeks to provide “free seedlings to selected beneficiaries in communities in Paynesville City and Fendell-Careysburg who desire to venture into home farming to increase availability of food during this COVID-19 period and beyond”.
AGRO TECH, a youth based nongovernmental organization that works with youth on food security promotion activities in Liberia, is executing the project.
The group, established in June 2017, has been a leading voice for youth in agriculture, advocating for support to young famers as well as attracting youth to agriculture and agribusiness as a way to reduce youth unemployment and poverty.
Visibly, the group was involved in home gardening during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Minister Cooper said the initiative is a way of encouraging urban dwellers to grow food.
For this project known as TRIUMPH GARDEN, AGRO-TECH targets 1000 households in Paynesville, Liberia; 900 households in Fendell and Careysburg aegis and 100 households at the Edward Binyan Kesselly’s Barracks (EBK), Liberia’s main military barracks.
In Paynesville City, the northern suburbs of Monrovia, students at the Paynesvile Community School (PCS) and select communities around the police barracks area will benefit.
Mount Barclay and Careysburg Public Schools within the Fendell and Careysburg corridor along with students at the University of Liberi’s William R. Tolbert College of Agriculture and Forestry will be beneficiaries.
Funding for this project is sourced from the Contingency Emergency Response Component (CERC) under the ministry’s implemented Smallholder Agriculture Transformation and Agribusiness Revitalization Project financed by the World Bank.
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