(Monrovia, October 23, 2020)- The Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) has ordered several thousand liters of different types of accepted agrochemicals -pesticides, insecticides and fungicides to assist farmers across the country in reducing pests and insects’ damages on food and tree crops -cocoa, coffee, and oil palm.

“His Excellency, President George Manneh Weah has always been concerned about low food production in the country and instructed us to find solutions to the problems facing farmers so they can grow more food”, Liberia’s Agriculture Minister said.

She added, “Because of President Weah’s strong desire to ensure the problems are solved, we at the MOA, immediately formulated a food security plan during this COVID-19 pandemic which captures the purchase of genuine agrochemicals for free distribution to farmers among other support which will highlight later”.

Liberian farmers have always suffered low yields and crops losses due to the plaguing of different types of insects and pests on their respect farms as struggling farmers hardly afford the costs to buy agrochemicals.

Several MOA’s studies show Liberia is generally vulnerable to pests and diseases which attack crop and livestock and this is mainly due to a number of reasons including lack of adequate systems for pests and disease control in the country and the prevalence of counterfeit agrochemicals in the market

Farmers are excited about the ordering of agrochemicals which arrive in Liberia before November end

One cassava farmer in Grand Cape Mount County in Liberia’s western region remarked on phone: “If these chemicals come, it will greatly help as we have been suffering too long and we thank the Government for this”

The ordering of those environmentally-friendly agrochemicals is part of the MOA’s COVID-19 Food Security, Nutrition and Livelihood Plan developed in April this year.

African Development Bank, International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) and the World Bank immediately endorsed the plan to mitigate the COVID-19 shocks on the farming community and food security.

The agrochemicals are being ordered through the Contingency Emergency Response Component (CERC), a fund under the MOA’s supervised duo donor-funded Smallholder Agriculture Transformation and Agribusiness Revitalization Project (STAR-P) within the Program Management Unit.