The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (M.A.F) has begun to roll out a new grants programme to assist farmers and fishers in Samoa.

The USD$23.55 million project is funded by the World Bank and co-funded by the International Fund for Agriculture Development, and will continue until June 2025.

Known as the Ministry's Samoa Agriculture and Fisheries Productivity and Marketing Project (S.A.F.P.R.O.M) Matching Grants Programme; farmer and fisher participants were trained in its use in a session at the T.A.T.T.E Conference Room on Wednesday.

The Ministry's Assistant Chief Executive Officer (A.C.E.O) of the Agriculture Sector Coordination Division. Dr. Ramona Stephanie Sulifoa stated in an interview that the project was effective in December 2019 and they are rolling out the Matching Grants Programme which is one of the major activities under S.A.F.P.R.O.M.

"The goal of S.A.F.P.R.O.M. is to really help the economy, farmers and fishers to increase production and productivity so that we are able to sustain food production locally and also for the export market," Dr. Sulifoa said.

According to the A.C.E.O., the Matching Grants Programme plays a vital role in achieving this objective and since last year they have had more than 3000 farmers and fishers apply but the number of eligible applicants now is 1300.

Dr. Sulifoa explained that the training for all the cohorts in Savaii was about 300 farmers and fishers and are in the final process to start the disbursement to farmers and fishers in Savaii.

They hope that by the end of March, they have these disbursements in terms of equipment and tools in order to raise their production levels. 

They are currently training about 900 Upolu farmers and fishers and are working closely with the Samoa Business Hub who is leading the training on business plan development. 

"Some of the major challenges that we see its the huge number of the demand for agriculture production from farmers and fishers but we cannot fulfil all of that and we're only taking the farmers and fishers that are eligible based on the criteria that has been set out," she said.

She explained that the target of the project is 700 farmers and fishers for the whole five years. 

"We've exceeded this target, we’ve got 1300 farmers that are now eligible and we can see that the demand is still there and the other challenge is we need more females involved in agriculture production," she said. 

Dr. Sulifoa believes that women have a large role to play in vegetable production and can contribute a lot in that area and they would like to see more women leaders come in and take charge, owning agriculture as a business venture. 

She said that women have the capacity to manage large farms and turning them into profitable enterprises. 

Out of the 1300 eligible farmers and fishers in the project, Dr. Sulifoa said that 22 to 25 per cent are women but the target of the project is to have 30 per cent women. 

She emphasised that not every farmer is eligible because certain criteria need to be met as they are aiming for sustainability.