Sustainable Urban and Peri-Urban Vegetable Gardens for Women Empowerment Project

pipeline

The agricultural sector in Liberia, particularly urban and peri-urban agriculture, presents several opportunities for growth and development. For instance, the demand for vegetables has increased tremendously due to the growing urban population, rising income levels, and the expansion of the retail, hospitality, and catering services industries. This growth in demand provides a significant opportunity for local farmers to increase their production and income. However, the country relies heavily on imports to meet this demand. Liberia imports over 60 percent of its staple food (including rice and vegetables) requirement, making the country highly vulnerable to market disruptions and global food-price volatility. It is estimated that farmers in Liberia produce less than 50 percent of its fresh vegetable requirement, although Liberia is endowed with excellent growing environment to produce quality vegetables to meet domestic requirements of the country.Liberia’s population is young (nearly 70 percent of the population is younger than 35) and expanding. This highlights the importance of addressing the needs and challenges of the youth – including their limited access to employment. Young people in search of stable employment migrate to Monrovia and smaller cities but often are faced with the challenges of lack of job opportunities. These youth constitute labor that can be mobilized for agricultural production in and around the cities where they now live, particularly since the smaller and aging proportion of the population remaining in rural areas cannot feed the fast-growing urban populations. In addition to providing employment for youth and women and improving incomes, labor-intensive peri-urban vegetable production can lead to greater diversity in diets—especially in Liberia, where malnutrition is widespread. Local diets largely based on rice and cassava are high in carbohydrates, but low in micronutrients and vitamins. Increasing the amount and variety of nutrient-dense vegetables in diets can sustainably alleviate micronutrient deficiencies. Growing vegetables for urban areas can be quite profitable for farmers due to the quick return on investment and the high prices that fresh produce can demand. Moreover, by using land in peri-urban spaces, where produce can be delivered to cities within 2-3 hours, farmers can help reduce food miles, lessen climate impact, and improve the ecological performance of the food system.Peri–Urban vegetables production in Liberia face key challenges to sustainable, despite its important role in poverty reduction and environmental sustainability. Currently, vegetables are mostly grown in Liberia under rain-fed conditions, which see a significant drop in production volume during the dry season. It is estimated that the vegetable farmers in Liberia are only producing under 50 percent of attainable yields because of the lack of reliable water sources and insufficient access and use of productivity-enhancing agricultural inputs, with minimum attention paid to quality. Farmers’ resort to the use of crude systems and generally lack the knowledge for the proper use and disposal of pesticides poses the problem of crop contamination and raises significant food safety concerns. While peri-urban vegetable farming can adequately meet the demands of cities’ populace, the food safety concerns have particularly compelled supermarkets to import vegetables to serve the needs of restaurants, hotels, the middle class and the affluent who mistrust local production for the safety concerns, which need to be addressed to be able to link the local production to the hospitality industry and to provide economic incentives especially for women vegetable farmers. The inability of the smallholder vegetable farmers to meet the increasing quality demands of the urban population makes it difficult for them to have access to high value markets to improve their earnings and livelihoods. Other challenges include inadequate institutional capacity for the provision of agricultural advisory services, low access to water management services, limited access to post-production services leading to high postharvest losses, inadequate technical knowledge of Peri–Urban agricultural practices and weak management skills, as well as weak organizational capacities of smallholders and their associations. The sector has lagged those in other countries in the region, including neighboring Guinea and Cote d’Ivoire. The knowledge and skills required for practical horticultural production predominantly stem from local expertise, which has been honed through generations of trial and error. The situation is further complicated by the effects of climate change, leading to unpredictable weather conditions and increased vulnerability to pests and diseases.The activities under the grant application will be organized around 3 components:Component 1: Support for the Development of Modern Community Vegetable Gardens: The component will seek to strengthen the productive capacity of vegetable growing smallholders utilizing the available water resources efficiently to increase crop productivity while reducing environmental footprints. The component will support four (4) activities:(a) Community mobilization and formation/strengthening of women's groups and vegetables cooperatives for sustainable vegetables production,(b) The project will support the development/improvement of infrastructure platforms for market-oriented community vegetable gardens (5-10 ha each) for vulnerable women (including persons with disability) and young people in 30 vegetable growing areas in the targeted project counties. Under the community garden scheme, the Project will finance the provision of pressurized water management technologies, appropriate to Liberia, to modernize production systems with associated investments such as on-farm water storage tanks, on-farm drip or sprinkler irrigation equipment, greenhouse and vertical farming with appropriate digital enhancements (including precision technologies) to promote smart irrigation to support year-round vegetable production. The grant will also finance fencing (where necessary), solar powered boreholes (to promote green energy use) and overhead reservoirs, packhouses and shed which can also serve as shelters for children who accompany their parents to the gardens, sanitary facilities, etc.(c) Supporting training and capacity-building programs for urban and peri-urban vegetable farmers, focusing on sustainable farming practices and the adoption and use of modern inputs and techniques. Providing capacity support for improving productivity by facilitating the adoption of modern and improved production techniques through sustained farmer capacity development and other support systems. It will finance (i) promote good vegetable farming techniques such as the use of greenhouse technology, plastic covers, shade nets, drip irrigation techniques, quality seeds, as well as appropriate hand held and efficient equipment to optimize local vegetable production to meet their year- round customer demand, both in quantity and quality; (ii) the training of women and youth vegetable gardeners in modern vegetable farming as well as on the operation and maintenance of the financed irrigation equipment to optimize their operational efficiency and effectiveness; (iii) support enterprising you women and men to establish profitably run productive support services centres to enhance access to productive inputs packages, including bio-pesticides, bio-fertilizers, improved seeds/ seedlings, equipment, and tools; (iv) provision of extension services and trainings to vegetable farming groups in climate-smart technologies for sustainable vegetable production (e.g., application of bio-pesticides, bio-fertilizers, compost making, etc, equipment, tools, solar dryer, as well as integrated pest management practices).(d) Promoting nutrition-sensitive practices for vulnerable groups throu