Over 10,000 rural young farmers, benefiting from the government of Liberia’s Youth Opportunity Project (YOP), have cultivated 851,000 acres of farmland. Prominent crops are cassava, rice, cucumber and other vegetables.
Crops from the farmland were sold and brought in substantial income for the project beneficiaries who have begun reinvesting the profit back into large scale farming.
According to D. Zeogar Wilson, Minister of Youth and Sports, the project aims to improve access to income generation opportunities for targeted youth and strengthen the government’s capacity to implement its cash transfer program, as well as promoting agriculture at the grassroots level.
“The farmer empowerment component of this project is designed to encourage vulnerable youth in the rural part of the country to engage in agriculture in order to feed themselves and a means of livelihood. To make this happen, we provide each farmer group’s members labor subsidies of US$300, which is meant to encourage them to focus only on farming. Furthermore, we also provide them agricultural tools, seedlings, and modern farming techniques.”
Minister Wilson also added the ministry and its project partners also provide technical supports to the farmers including business training, agro-processing machine, and market information to the farmers.
Wilson further explained that since the start of the project three years ago, they have spent over US$1 million on the targeted beneficiaries who are engaged in farming and small businesses, as well as other young people who are being trained and prepared for employment.
The Youth Opportunities Project, according to Min. Wilson, is a five-year program with a US$10 million loan from the World Bank that is implemented in four different components: pre-employment social support, household enterprises, and capacity and systems building and the productive public works and life skills support.
Source: liberianobserver.com
