BUCHANAN, Liberia - Ahead of the training, the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA) brought into the country several small farm machines for smallholders’ farmers and installed them at the County Agriculture Center facility in the Old Korean Camp Community in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County. The project is carrying out numerous activities, including setting up best-practice hubs in small farm machines and post-harvest equipment in the area. Improving Agricultural Resilience to Salinity through the Development and Promotion of Pro-Poor Technologies, RESADE seeks to improve agricultural resilience to salinity in coastal communities in Liberia.

Dr. Zied Hammami, agronomist from ICBA, working with Prince David Hiama, acting project focal point, led a team of seven technicians from CARI to install the agricultural machinery and co-facilitate the training.

The project’s initiative, according to Dr. Hammami, has taken various measures to improve agricultural resilience to salinity in the selected countries. “Best-practice hubs have been established in each country where small farm machines and post-harvest equipment are installed, and planned training programs on technical hands-on training in machinery operation to address all project partners’ awareness, knowledge gaps, and needs.”

Using small farm machines, Dr. Zied reminds the farmers that the factors of production; genetic or seed viability, environment (atmosphere, and water), good soil and organic matter, and healthy plants, there is a likelihood of an increase in food production.

He adds that to do better land preparation, smallholder farmers should use small farm machines to work the soil to allow the plant's roots to penetrate and access the nutrients. “Organic matters accelerate the process for mineral uptake,” the agronomist and lead facilitator tells the farmers.

“It is not unique to Liberia,” says Dr. Zied, “the new generation does not want to work on the farm because it is too hard for them, so using small farm machines can increase productivity.” He asks Liberians to invest in the sector to increase farmers’ production capacity to enable the use of the small farm machines available to them for value addition as this is going to be one of the surest ways to ensure food security in Liberia.

During the weeklong exercise, all the participants were provided the opportunity to engage with the facilitators to practically operate the machines one after the other. Earlier on the first day, the team trained 20 farmers as trainers-of-trainees (ToTs) to transfer skills they have acquired in small farm machinery operations to five different farmer organizations members in the area.­

On the following four days, co-facilitated by the ToTs under the guidance of RESADE staff support, the farmer field schools (FFS) covered the general principles of good agricultural practices, the role and importance of machinery in agriculture, small equipment for land preparation, sowing, and chemical applications, harvest and post-harvest equipment, general aspects, tips, and best practices for maintenance, spare parts, and replacements, are areas of concern the RESADE technical support team has to place more emphasis.

CARI Co-Facilitates Training

Prince David Hiama, the project focal point in Liberia, used the occasion to encourage farmers to own and make appropriate use of and increase productivity in the value chain.

According to him, the ToT is designed to train extension officers, mechanics, and farmer association members to learn to operate, maintain, and know the basic repair of small farm machinery and post-harvest equipment.

The objective of training, he adds, is that farmers learn about the small farm machines to showcase the possibility of doing new things because people see things before they believe that farmers in Liberia can produce better products. “Good products demand better quality, and more minerals offer higher nutritional value.

ICBA Turns Over Small Farm Machines To Smallholder Farmers’ Organizations

The lead facilitator from ICBA, at the close of the training, officially turned over seven pieces of small farm machines, including a power tiller, multi-crop thresher, diesel-operated seed cleaner, grain seeds/screening machine, seeds bran shelling machine, vacuum packaging machine, and manual seed planter.

The thresher, a mobile multi-crop thresher, is mounted on a chassis and attached to a 10hp air-cooled diesel engine. The machine is also mounted on an axle with two pneumatic tires for easy transportation. It is fitted to a feeding platform that provides an extra two concave grills and three sieves for threshing different crops, including barley, sorghum, corn/millet and cowpea. Six sieves for different types of common crops are available with the machine.

The grain seed/screening machine is used for sorting and winnowing. The structure of the machine is divided into two layers with different sizes of sieve holes. The upper sieve is used to select impurities larger than the material, while the lower layer is to select impurities that are smaller than the material. In addition, there is a fan for cleaning the feed inlet of the equipment.

The vacuum packaging machine, it is suitable for all kinds of plastic composite file bags, aluminum foil bags, and vacuum packaging for many products, including feed, preserved fruits, grain, vegetables, and edible fungi, medicinal materials among other medical and chemical products. The packaged materials can achieve the purpose of oxygen insulation, freshness, moisture, mildew, rust, insect, and pollution prevention.

Earlier in a welcome statement, Joyce Korvah, Grand Bassa County Agriculture Coordinator (CAC), charges the farmers to be grateful to the ICBA for the machines but they should also be aware that they are accountable to the people of Liberia to increase yield and add value to food crops. “After today, I encouraged you to share knowledge that you are going to gain here today to members of the cooperatives that you represent,” the CAC reminds the farmers.

The used the occasion to inform county officials, businesses, and private institutions to support the work of farmers, and farmers’ organizations to increase production that can feed the thresher and the packaging machines that have been officially turned over to the five farmers’ organizations in the area.

In Liberia, the use of small farm machines by smallholder farmers is very low. They still rely on manual tools such as machetes and hand hoes to cultivate their land, a situation that is responsible for low yield. Jointly financed by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA), the project is currently active in seven South-Saharan Africa (SSA) and West African countries, including Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, Togo, Gambia, Sierra Leone and Liberia.