Emergency Agricultural Livelihoods and Climate Resilience Project hand over inputs and equipment to government departments

The Emergency Agricultural Livelihoods and Climate Resilience Project Division has presented inputs and equipment to the Forestry Division and Engineering Unit of the Ministry of Agriculture.

The Division handed over 108 bags of organic fertilizers costing EC$650.00 and two rotavators costing $17,590 during a presentation ceremony on Friday.

“Our initiative is to facilitate both the… micro-farmers and backyard farmers in land preparation,” Project Manager for the Emergency Agricultural Livelihoods and Climate Resilience Project, Kervin Stephenson, said. “Land preparation is one of the biggest factors in terms of ensuring that your place is ready for receiving both the seedlings and the seeds.”

He said the lack of rain over the last couple of months has made it more challenging for land preparation, “in that, not even a manhole fork is able to go into the ground right now because of the dryness.”

Stephenson said it is fitting that the division could provide equipment that can facilitate single-women head of households and he is hoping that the ministry of agriculture will make the machinery available to those women as loans.

“They will basically provide the transport; come and collect it where we have it stored; use it for a fixed period of time and get a collective group of farmers in communities,” he explained. “We are hoping one can be located in the north, one can be located in the south and that would greatly help in not only reducing the cost but also ensuring that we have land preparation.”

Meantime, Stephenson said with regard to the Emergency Contingency Response Component of the programme, online registration starts this week.

“The first week in June we want to launch online registration of what we call micro-farmers, these are farmers who did not qualify under the project; had less than a quarter acre, more than 3000 square feet; did not qualify for the backyard farmers,” he stated.

He said these farmers will be entitled to $500 worth of inputs.

“They simply sign a registration form online, as long as they are physically capable, have water and are willing to share produce with a number of institutions indicated on the form, they will be automatically qualified,” Stephenson said.

However, Stephenson said that the cash transfer programme is the more challenging aspect of the programme.

“Again, we would like to emphasize [that it] is for farmers who have been approved under the programme,” he said. “That means farmers who have expressed their interest, submit their applications, submit their land paper and all the necessary documentation to facilitate the approval…[these are] the farmers we are going to facilitate in transferring $700 to small farmers, less than 2 acres, $1400 to medium farmers between 2 and 5 acres and $2800 to farmers more than 5 acres.”