Farmers on La Digue, Praslin meet FAO rep |24 February 2017

Farmers young and old from La Digue and Praslin recently had the opportunity to discuss agriculture and farming and the challenges they face with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) representative Dr Patrice Talla Takoukam who was on an official mission here earlier this month.

Accompanied by the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries Michael Benstrong and key officials from the same ministry, Dr Takoukam visited around a dozen farms and farmers from both islands.

He was particularly delighted by the visits especially the discussions he had with the farmers young and old. 

He was particularly impressed by the work of a number of young and very enterprising farmers, some already in production for a few years while others are at the very start of their farming project.

He had strong words of encouragement for all of them.

“You are part of the next generation of farmers to ensure an appreciable measure of national food and nutrition security,” he told a young farmer on La Digue.

In assessing the farming environment of the two islands, Dr Takoukam remarked that three issues stand out clearly as impediments to the sector.

The first is the need for financial resources at a competitive interest rate vis-à-vis those available at market rate with a view to providing for investment in the sector, particularly in the purchase of capital goods for farm development. Secondly he alluded to the need for a very strong marketing campaign in the promotion of local agricultural produce and products, both of crops and livestock origin.  

He called for more education and promotion of the nutritional value of local agricultural produce and products.

He noted that buying locally produced fresh products also promotes the local producers, improves their livelihood and consequently supports the local economy.

Dr Takoukam also recognised the need for farms to have a consistent supply of highly productive farm hands.

While national regulations allow for employment of expatriate farm hands, Dr Takoukam stressed on more effort to make working in the agricultural sector more attractive in order to encourage more young locals to make a living as farm hands.

Dr Takoukam ended his tour with a promise of further technical help from the FAO which over the next four years (2018-2021) would be yet again through the Country Programming Framework (CPF), a protocol of agreement between Seychelles and the FAO as well as very well defined areas for assistance covering the wide range of domains for natural resources management and for which FAO has competitive advantage. 

The insights gained through the visits to La Digue were further broadened by a similar visit to the farming community of Praslin over a period of two days.

The main purpose of Dr Takoukam’s visit was for him to renew the contact and partnership with national stakeholders including both private and public parties principally government ministries involved in natural resources management; assess the progress of ongoing technical cooperation projects assisted by the FAO; explore new areas for future cooperation in the domain of natural resources management.

The accompanying photos show Dr Takoukam touring some farms on La Digue.