LIBERIA: Agro Processing Machines donated to local farmers in Nimba
…As CUSD Executive Director Warned against Marginalization – A local NGO, Community Union for Sustainable Development (CUSD) has donated two small agro processing machines valued over nine thousand United States Dollars to two Farmers’ Groups in Nimba County.
CUSD Executive Director Cooper Z. Gaye Making Presentation of the Agro Cassava Processing to the Deapeh Rural Women Group
The two groups are the Deapeh Rural Women in Sacleapea-Mah Statutory District and the Miaplay Oil Palm in Zoe-Geh Statutory District.
The Deapeh Rural Women Farmers Group was given the small agro cassava processing machine, while palm processing received the small agro oil palm processing machine.
Besides the agro machines, facilities to host the machines and where members of the groups will produce their products were constructed, with gasoline, engine oils and empty drums to get the local farmers started, were provided as well.
CUSD Executive Director Cooper Z. Gaye Making Presentation the Agro Oil Palm Processing to the Miaplay Oil Palm Production Group
Speaking at the separate donation ceremonies recently, the Executive Director of the Community Union for Sustainable Development (CUSD), Cooper Z. Gaye, warned members against the act of marginalization in the usage of the machines provided them.
Mr. Gaye: “No one member must take the agro processing machines as his or her personal property by excluding others. If it was not for me these machines could not have been here and in fact it is I who gave the land where the facilities are today”, he pointed out.
He said engaging in such act will undermine the growth and development of the Deapeh Rural Women and the Miaplay Oil Palm Farmers’ Groups as it will discourage the organization that provided the funding for CUSD to purchase the small agro processing machines.
Mr. Vincent Sahn – CUSD Project Coordinator
“I urged you people to be united and work together by including all members in the operations of the machines to generate money to better improve the social wellbeing of everyone as well as cater to their families, especially their children who are their future”, Mr. Gaye pointed out.
The Executive Director of Community Union for Sustainable Development said from the way the two local farmers’ groups will operate the machines could encourage CUSD and its partner to even do more for them.
Mr. Gaye admonished the local farmers to use the small agro processing machines as a success stories that will be told in their respective Districts and Nimba County as a whole.
Receiving the machines, the heads of the Deapeh Rural Women and the Miaplay Oil Palm, Yah Nyahn and Peter Bonnie thanked CUSD for the gesture and promised that the agro processing machines will be used for the intended purpose.
One of the Beneficiaries Speaking to Journalists
Madam Nyahn and Mr. Bonnie vowed that the machines will be used to empower their members and assured CUSD and its partner that they will maintain them perfectly.
“What CUSD has done for us is beyond our imagination because it will now reduce the hard labor we used to go through in processing our cassava and palm”, Madam Nyahn and Mr. Bonnie indicated.
Speaking earlier, CUSD Project Coordinator, Vincent Sahn said the donation of the agro machines to the two local famers’ groups in Nimba is intended to help them to increase their productions.
Mr. Sahn disclosed that Community Union for Sustainable Development (CUSD) was able to provide Deapeh Rural Women and Miaplay Oil Palm with the agro processing machines through funding from Diakonie Katastropheahilfe in Germany.
The Miaplay Oil Palm Processing Facility
He said the donation is under the project: “Project K–Liberia 2016–2038 Enabling Recovery in Rural Areas of Liberia Affected by the Ebola Virus Disease, supported by Diakonie.
Meanwhile, the Special Assistant to the City Mayor of Saclepea, A. Wallace Zigbuo, Jr. and the District Superintendent for Zoe–Geh, Albert N. N. Farnga, described the donations as timely in buttressing Government’s agriculture agenda.
Messrs Zigbuo and Farnga pledged to work with members of the two local farming groups to ensure that the machines are maintained and used for the intended purpose to benefit the people of the two Districts.
