I received an e-mail from Dr. Toe the other day saying he has made it to Liberia and he is anxiously looking forward to "face the challenge of revitalizing our nation." Hopefully in the future (if it hasn't already been done), I'll be able to post the first official Atlas forum interview with an actively serving foreign official.
Did a quick search to see how things are going, and found this little snippet from April:
"Liberia: UNMIL Humanitarian Situation Report No. 50"(Scrolling down...)Agricultural Coordination Committee (ACC)
An extraordinary policy-level meeting of the Agriculture Coordination Committee (ACC) took place on 12th April in Monrovia and chaired by the Minister of Agriculture, Dr. J. Chris Toe, the meeting brought together high profile representatives of various agriculture-related international NGOs and UN agencies, including FAO Representative, Dr. Winfred Hammond and WFP Country Director, Mr. Louis Imbleau.
Dr. Toe and Dr. Hammond lauded the efforts of NGOs that are providing assistance to vulnerable farmers, which is indicative of their willingness to ensuring household and national food security.
The Agriculture Minister however stressed the need for improvement on the level of coordination among the various stakeholders, stating that the cluster approach and the pooling of resources can provide additional benefits to the agricultural sector. He urged NGOs to collaborate effectively with the Ministry of Agriculture and advised them to change their mode of distributing farm inputs to farmers in major towns and road-side villages but instead they should endeavor to reach out to those in the interior who have not benefited from any NGO assistance during the previous cropping seasons.
Speaking on the Policy Formulation and Action Plan for the Rehabilitation of the Agriculture Sector, FAO Senior Policy Advisor, Mr. T.E.C. Palmer, based at FAO Regional Office for Africa in Accra, Ghana, gave an overview of the policy instrument. In view of the urgency expressed by the Liberian government, the preparation of the Policy Statement and an Action Plan for the short term is geared towards the rehabilitation and development of the food and agriculture sector. The immediate objective is to articulate the main thrust of government’s policy in terms of focus, priorities, roles of the public and private sectors, institutional set up, procedures and decentralization, providing a framework for government’s dealing with its development partners and other stakeholders.
The plan for a successful transition of the country’s agricultural sector from emergency to rehabilitation, reconstruction and development would require significant contribution towards the government’s goals of food security, generation of foreign exchange and overall economic development. The plan, referred to as “Statement of Intent”, will cover 12 -- 18 months, thereafter a comprehensive policy document can be drawn up. Emphasis will be placed on increased production of the country’s staple, tree crops for export earnings and the sustainable management of the forest sector.
Food processing for value addition, gender mainstreaming and property rights/land tenure are core policy issues which were highlighted during the meeting. Deputy Agriculture Minister for Planning and Development, James B. Logan presented to the meeting the Liberia National Programme for Food Security (NPFS) and provided four components of a model National Food Security and Rural Poverty Eradication Programme.
Another key issue discussed during the meeting was the problem of pests presented by Professor Anthony Youdeowei, FAO Consultant on Integrated Production and Pest. He briefed the meeting on the principles of Integrated Pest Management and the purpose of his mission to Liberia to assist FAO and the Ministry of Agriculture in designing a short, medium to long term pest management programme. Actions should be taken to establish functional Plant Protection Directorate under the National Food Security Program with a proposal for a detailed pest surveys to be conducted to identify the range of pests attacking different crops at every crop stage as well as to conduct crop loss assessment in order to determine priority pests for attention. The problem of pest infestation during the 2005 cropping season has raised serious concern by intervening NGOs as most farmers complained of heavy crop losses at the field level thus discouraging them to continue farming.
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