afrol News, 26 May - Small-scale farmers in Sierra Leone, will jointly benefit with those in Bangladesh and Pakistan in a World Food Programme (WFP) funded programme aimed at boosting the food production capacities of poor farmers in the developing countries.

The programme, funded with a 39-million euro donation from the European Union (EU), will boost projects that are aimed at helping poor farmers - most of them women - to more efficiently produce food through programmes such as group farming, crop diversification and kitchen gardens. In some communities, WFP will also provide food in exchange for work on projects aimed at improving irrigation and flood resistance, or planting trees.

“Thanks to this generosity from the European Union, millions of people will have access to food and nutrition who otherwise would not have,” said WFP Executive Director, Josette Sheeran, citing the importance of the Food Facility launched by the EU to help people in developing countries to overcome the growing food insecurity.

These WFP food security projects come under the first allocation from the new 1-billion euro EU Food Facility, to respond to the growing food security problems faced by many developing countries. About 1.5 million people will benefit from the first four WFP programmes.

In Sierra Leone, 5.4 million euro will be allocated to provide food in exchange for work on rehabilitation of inland valley swamps and smallholder plantations and improvement of feeder roads to help farmers bring their produce to market.

By staff writer

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