BY JOHN HOUANIHAU
IT IS the first time for the Ministry of Agriculture and the country to have a 10 year strategy plan according to the Ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Ethel Francis.
‘’It actually started in 2019 when support comes from the National government to do provincial consultation. The Ministry is lucky to have supports from two UN bodies, the food and Agriculture Organisation and the international food for Agriculture and development.
She said the Ministry used its own local national consultants and they had gone down to do consultations on behalf of the Ministry regarding the strategic plan 2019-2028.
“The process has been very thorough. We did carry out our provincial consultation, brought in our officers and we look at it then we have a draft where we presented to premiers where only a few premiers did turn up.
“We also had expert advice from these two UN bodies and we shared the draft with development partners especially those partnering with SI like World Bank expertise in the area of livestock,” Ethel told premiers.
“So, it is a strategy that is thoroughly consulted on and developed by experts. What we did as a Ministry is we hire local consultants, our technical teams consult with stakeholders and farmers and we send the input to FAO consultants that drafted the strategies together,” she added.
Mrs. Ethel said the goal of the strategy is to sustain agriculture growth and investment plan, identify strategic opportunities and outline an ambitious pathway to revitalize, organise and commercialise the Agriculture sector to contribute to the wellbeing of SI Citizens.
“This is our plan and to be able to refresh the agriculture sector, it is our duty, not only the ministry, but us, to ensure that the aspiration in the strategy is achieved for this nation,” said the PS.
The PS said the strategy has 4 programs that give the road map on how to revive the sector and has two parts, one about the program and the other is the detailed analysis from what it had captured through the provincial consultants.
“So the different target of the strategy is to increase the sector’s contribution to the GDP, increased self-sufficiency through the local food supply chain, decrease the level of stunting in children under 5 years, increased agriculture activity productivity and profitability for all value chain actors and decrease the level of people living below poverty. Those are the key goals that we want to achieve in the strategy,’’ Ethel said.
“Over the years we have forgotten the agriculture sector. There has not been much attention and this strategy is very comprehensive. It covers a lot of areas because that is what we want, to revitalize the agriculture sector,” added Tebengi.
She also highlighted that the other two main programs the strategy aims to achieve are livestock production for import substitutions and copra production for export earnings.
The strategy 2019 -2028 would also aims to address the issue of climate change on agriculture, enhancing of MAL biosecurity division, food affordability and accessibility, land use planning which all aim to review the agriculture sector in the country.
The provincial premiers have also contributed constructively to reviving the sector and have applauded MAL for the eye-opening 10 years strategic plan.
