Hand-over ceremony of first rice ever purchased by WFP in Sierra Leone. Photo by F. Boima for WFP
The Koinadugu Women’s Vegetable Farmers’ Cooperative delivered the first consignment of rice ever purchased by WFP in Sierra Leone. Twenty five metric tons of locally produced rice was purchased through the Purchase for Progress (P4P) project to be distributed through the school meals programmes.
This rice - enough to feed 3,800 primary school children for 3 months– is the first batch of a total of 500 metric tons of food that WFP plans to buy this year from 10 different organizations in Sierra Leone.
“This is the moment I have been waiting for, since my arrival in Sierra Leone a year and a half ago – being able to buy rice from smallholder farmers to distribute through our programmes”, said WFP Country Director, Christa Räder at a ceremony to mark the hand-over of the food attended by the Koinadugu District Council Chairman, representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture, representatives of the main partners and farmers.
For the Koinadugu Women’s Vegetable Farmers’ Cooperative, which represents 750 women, the contract to supply rice to WFP at a cost of US$560 per metric ton was a major breakthrough. “P4P has given us an income that allows us to expand our production, educate our children and take care of the needs of our families”, said Haja Marah chairwoman of the Koinadugu Women’s Vegetable Farmers’ Cooperative.
With P4P WFP is not only buying locally produced rice, it is also working with the Government and supply-side partners to improve smallholders’ capacity to deliver high standard milled rice. The project also helps connect farmers with agricultural markets, in line with the Government’s Smallholder Commercialization Scheme. The representative of the Minister of Agriculture, Mohamed Ajuba Sheriff, at the handover ceremony pledged to work with WFP, other supply-side partners and farmers’ cooperative groups to ensure that P4P succeeds.
In late 2009, 10 farmers’ organizations were selected by WFP and its partners through a coordination mechanism, the P4P Programme Advisory Group, to participate in the pilot project. Each organization signed a contract with the agency to supply up to 50 metric tons of locally produced milled rice. Funded in 1994, the Koinadugu Women’s Vegetable Farmers’ Cooperative has been the first to deliver a consignment of 25 tons. The organization benefits from the support on the supply side of the USAID-funded Promoting Agriculture Governance and the Environment (PAGE) programme.
The Howard G. Buffett Foundation provided the seed fund for the implementation of P4P in Sierra Leone, the European Union and the governments of Japan and Switzerland provided the funds to procure about 500 metric tons of rice under P4P in 2010.
