G's & Partner's plans include partnership with members of the National Association of Farmers Sierra Leone (NAFSL) in the communities around the country to support and build the resources base of women farmers and young farmers on their family farmlands to boost food production and reduce hunger and poverty.
The strategy is to build the capacity of smallholder women farmers and young farmers to own and settle on their family land in order to achieve food security, raise the incomes and to establish farmer settlement schemes for women in all chiefdoms of Sierra Leone.
The project will focus on:
- Developing the capacities of farmers to increase their productivity
- Set up marketing information systems
- Negotiate to lease or allocate land for women and young farmers with heads of landowner farm families and create access to land
- Creating activities that create wealth for smallholder women and young farmers
Sierra Leone has a popoulation of 7.2 Million. 51% of these are women. Agriculture engages 68% of these women. Sierra Leone has more than 5.4 Million hectares of arable land. Only 5% is under cultivation. Women and young farmers need access to farmland in order to achieve food self sufficiency and food sovereignty in Sierra Leone.
It is worth noting: The USA 2002 Census of Agriculture indicated 47% of the farms in Iowa, USA were owned by women. Women farmed 59,383,557 acres and 84% of the principal operators were full owners and 95.4 percent owned at least part of the land they operated.