The Food Agriculture Organization of the United Nations on Thursday empowered heads of Multi-Purpose Farmer’s Community Centers in Eastern Equatoria State with skills and knowledge to improve the management of the centers ahead of the official handover.
A one-day workshop held in Torit Town brought together 20 heads of farmers’ centers from Magwi and Torit to equip them with leadership skills to deliver on their mandates.
Speaking during the opening of the workshop, the deputy head of the FAO Torit Field Office, James Swokiri, said the training aimed to strengthen the capacities of all the farmer organizations in the state.
“We are organizing this training to interact with one another to improve our capacities to manage all these infrastructures so that we will manage them sustainably to contribute to the objectives of the Resilient Agriculture and Livelihood Project,” he said.
For his part, the head of the research department at the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, Clement Wani Modi, said the training will equip farmers with the knowledge to manage the centers before they are officially handed over.
“Before that center is handed to you as the farmers here in Torit, we have to make sure that everything is equipped everything has to be equipped in that place before they hand it to you people,” he stated.
Meanwhile, Adedomina Franco, the Director General of the State Ministry of Cooperatives and Rural Development, said the training is crucial in enabling the committees to learn their responsibilities and roles in order to deliver on their mandates.
“This training is very important because it is going to empower the management committees in each of the farmers’ centers in Magwi and Torit. They will get the knowledge, and skills and learn their responsibilities and roles,” said Franco. “The committee is very important and if the members do not know how to go about their responsibilities, then this project is going to fail. We rely on you.”