-Agric Power Africa Predicts
By T. Saye Goinleh
Agric Power Africa, an international organization in the country has disclosed that it can help transform Liberia to over US$10 billion in the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) within five years when it partners with the Government of Liberia.
Speaking on June 19, 2018 during a news conference following a closed-door meeting with authorities of the Ministry of Agriculture in Gardnerville, the chairman of Agric Power Africa, Aroms Emmanuel Aigbehi said agriculture holds huge potentials for earning revenue for Liberia.
According to him, in West Africa food imports alone is over forty billion United States dollars yearly, with Nigeria alone at over twenty-two billion, noting that this figure is rising every year.
Aigbehi said as result shows, many food items across West Africa (including Liberia) are priced the same as in the USA or in any European country. “This makes the cost of basic food items inaccessible for the people, hence causing the economy not to sustain itself,” he acknowledged.
The Agric Power Africa-Liberia head continued by saying that despite the prevailing situation, it is inevitable that Liberia can overcome her food problems and gain food security with the right attitude in agriculture within three years.
Aigbehi also indicated that this could only be enhanced when Liberia works on her potential by creating the processing and packaging of foods produced, stressing there exists huge markets for well-processed exportable spices and herbs which are in Liberia such as pepper, ginger, turmeric, nutmeg etc.
He said individuals as well as organizations that are engaged in these agricultural value-chain businesses that usually face uphill battles in any aspect of Agriculture will be successful to accumulate huge wealth. “Many of these problems are so huge and complicated that a single individual who is passionate about agriculture may not have enough money, time, contacts and skills to leverage their potentials in agriculture to create wealth,” Aigbehi observed.
He went on to tell reporters that to overcome these problems; there must be concerted efforts through cooperation of like-minded people and organizations that are prepared to harness their skills, knowledge, contacts and money and form an investment platform which can leverage the full potential of agriculture in Liberia, adding this is where Agric Power Africa-Liberia comes in.
“The ambition of Agric Power is to make Liberia a “Power House’’ for West Africa where she would become a network of exporters of food in three years,’’ Aigbehi declared.
Aigbehi further explained that his group has mapped three other countries in Africa apart from Liberia that would benefit from similar project namely, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Angola. He narrated that realizing the challenges Liberia has had in the past several years, it will be great to change the narrative in the country by helping to create a Liberia that the people would be proud of.
Comments are closed.