Sustainable Tree Crop Program

Date of Operation: September 2006 – October 2011

 

Prime Implementing Partner: International Institute of Tropical Agriculture

Other Implementing Partners: SOCO/DEVI, Winrock International

Counties of Operation: Nimba, Lofa, Bong

 

Goals and Objectives:

Generate growth in rural income among cocoa, palm oil and rubber farmers in an environmentally and socially responsible manner.

Strengthen farmers’ organizations, including the Cooperative Development Agency, and to enhance policy.

Activities:

Trains cocoa farmers in integrated crop and pest management, planting, replanting and crop diversification, including new technologies to improve yield and income. Plants have been improved in order to update Liberia’s cocoa production.

In collaboration with SOCO/DEVI, farmers are given help to organize themselves in order to gain bargaining power and marketing strength and promote democracy and governance. They hare trained in basic accounting and warehouse management, to provide crops and cash year round.

In collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture and cocoa sector stakeholders, STCP works on policy issues to improve all aspects of the value chain.

In partnership with Winrock International, STCP trains palm oil farmers in nursery preparation and maintenance, transplanting and management, in order to strengthen Liberian palm oil production. The Liberia Smallholder Oil Palm Revitalization Project (LSOPRP), implemented by Winrock International, is training local metal workers to build, maintain and market palm-oil processing machines dubbed “Freedom Mills” to sell to small-holder, tenant, and co-op farmers in order to increase efficiency and income.