The Society of Agriculture Professionals (S.O.A.P.) has been launched to assist the development of Samoa's agricultural sector and support farmers with technical advice.

The S.O.A.P. was launched at the premises of the Scientific Research Organisation Samoa (S.R.O.S.) at Vailima on Tuesday, witnessed by the association's new members as well as the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, La’auli Leuatea Schmidt.

La’auli said the formation of the association was prompted by the roles that will be played by the Government to ensure technical knowledge is available and shared with farmers in all aspects of farming.

"The changes in technology nowadays also comes with the changing of farming practices to many of our farmers," said the Minister.

"The old methods have to integrate with the new innovation of farming practices in order to achieve the sustainable farming objective.

"Samoan Agriculture has come a long-way and has been the backbone of our economy. The recent decline in its contribution to the GDP can always due to many reasonable factors. 

"However, the influx of financial assistance to the sector needed to be well consulted on technical agriculture so that the funds remains [and] circulate within Samoa."

The new SOAP Patron, Tusani Iosefatu Reti said the formation of the association is a good opportunity for local farmers to obtain knowledge and solutions for their farming problems.

He said the rationale behind the association's formation is to enable Samoan professionals to unite and share their knowledge and understanding of issues and ways to resolve these issues in the sector. 

"We are trying to gather members, identify their skills and try to share their skill to help all the ministries and different organizations," Tusani said. 

“Traditional knowledge of how things are to be done with how different crops are planted and we want to share this with all our members.

“The other organisations are sort of specialised in certain areas and here we are looking more generally at anything to do with agriculture and fisheries.”

The SOAP will rely on various Government Ministries and agencies as well as the National University of Samoa (N.U.S.) and the University of the South Pacific (U.S.P.) to provide technical advice.

This will be made available to all other similar existing societies in Samoa which they can then share for the benefit of the agriculture sector. 

Over the years Samoa has outsourced this service to international partners. This prompted them to take the initiative and create a pool of local agricultural experts in Samoa, who can provide assistance and guidance for the sector.