Thousands of women and youth farmers as well as fishers will benefit from a USD$800,000 ($2 million tala) project to boost agriculture and fisheries production in Samoa.

The Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries La'auli Leuatea Schmidt and the Australian High Commissioner to Samoa, Emily Luck witnessed the launching of the Pacific Islands Rural and Agriculture Stimulus Facility Project at the Lava Hotel on Friday.

La'auli said Samoa’s economy, like other Pacific Island nations, has been devastated by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic with the country’s tourism industry in doldrums.

“The tourism industry, which is a significant revenue earner and employment generator for Samoa, has been severely affected and the impact has been felt by many of the micro and small and medium enterprises linked to the tourism industry,” he said.

Thousands of people working directly or indirectly for the tourism sector lost their jobs, according to the Minister.

The Samoa and Australia Governments will partner with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (I.F.A.D.) in the project.

In an interview with Dr. Ramona Sulifoa, the Ministry’s Assistant C.E.O. of the Agriculture Sector Coordination Division, confirmed the total value of the project is USD$800,000 which will run for two years and target 3,000 beneficiaries. 

She said that the project targets women and youth farmers including those within associations.

“We will work with farming associations that have women and youth farmers and also those who are fishers – it also includes women selling sea-grapes alongside the roads in Savai’i,” said Dr Ramona. 

“The main goal is to try and ensure that we have enough food security in the country and support youth and women to achieve that, it is mainly targeting those vulnerable groups.

“As long as we are supporting our women and youth in their agriculture production then we have achieved our goal.”

In his speech to mark the occasion, La'auli said the pandemic’s impact has disrupted the local and global supply chains, led to the suspension of international travel and reduced demand for exports.

“These disruptions have negatively affected agriculture, food and nutritional security in a variety of ways such as: exports by air freight are now facing massive marketing constraints since they often relied on passenger flights,” said the Minister.

“Direct sales to travelers and tourists commonly used to market locally produced products have been lost.

“The supply of food into Samoa has fluctuated due to the irregular shipments; cost of shipping in goods has also increased; cost of agriculture seeds, tools and equipment have increased and therefore affecting agriculture production and productivity.”

The Samoa Government recognised the importance of agriculture as the backbone of an inclusive economy and a means of enhancing economic resilience of its citizens.

“The pandemic has increased awareness of the important role that domestic food systems play in providing resilience to shocks, self-sufficiency and insurance against food insecurity,” said the Minister. 

“This mutual concern for a rapid recovery from the pandemic’s effects provides an opportunity for the Samoan Government and its development partners to work together to strengthen the resilience of domestic food systems for long term sustainability. 

“This regional initiative through the P.I.R.A.S. is timely as our focus in the region shifts from insulating ourselves from the pandemic towards economic recovery and resilience building.

“I wish to acknowledge the steadfast support of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (I.F.A.D.) and the Government of Australia for partnering with our Government in this initiative.

“This P.I.R.A.S. project comes at a crucial time to complement the Government's efforts in creating new and sustaining existing livelihoods for those severely impacted by the effects of the pandemic.”

Furthermore, La'auli said that in any crisis, it is usually the vulnerable sections of the community who are affected. Consequently the P.I.R.A.S. project will target women and youth farmers in rural areas in Samoa.

“P.I.R.A.S. complements our Government’s economic recovery initiatives by targeting those communities who are seen as the most vulnerable,” added the Minister.

“With the technical support of our non-governmental organisations, farmers associations and our Scientific Research Organisation of Samoa as well as other agencies of our Government, the P.I.R.A.S. will support rural farmers through: providing farmers with seedlings and planting materials for crops, livestock and fisheries.

“Provide tools, farming equipment and training to improve farm productivity; provide food processing technologies and training to support post-harvest handling, food preservation and value adding; establishing nurseries and demonstration plots.

“Provide training to farmers in crop and animal husbandry practices; and encouraging and expanding the use of mobile applications amongst farmers as medium for sharing market related information as well as creating awareness on issues and events.”

The Minister also said that data capture and knowledge sharing is also at the core of the project with the project driven by the Regional Coordination Unit based out of the I.F.A.D. office in Fiji.

The unit’s primary role shall be to engage in partnerships that ensure utilisation driven data is collected and fed into the country-level activities, and that these activities in turn generate quality data on outreach and targeting as well as verified progress data.

“The cornerstone of this initiative is developing and sustaining strong partnerships at various levels – partnership at the community level where peer learning will be encouraged; partnership at the enterprise level between rural farmers and the private sector; partnership at the agency coordination level between government and non-government actors, including the private sector, and partnership at the strategic level between government and development partners.

“As the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us, it is only through harnessing our efforts collectively as one, do we have a greater chance of mitigating the negative impact from the pandemic, recover the losses we have borne over the past two years, whilst building more resilient systems that provide more sustainable livelihoods for our peoples in the future.”