Fresh Produce Development Agency General Manager, Mark Worinu has urged the staff of FPDA to work together as a team and deliver the projects assigned by the Government to help the farmers.
Worinu made these remarks during the planning workshop for the Market for Village Farmers project (MVF) in Goroka, Eastern Highlands Province recently.
Mr Worinu strongly emphasized that year 2021 is an important year for the project implementation; hence urges both the staff of FPDA, MVF and other stakeholders to work hard, and deliver much needed services to the farming communities who will benefit from the intervention.
Project Manager for MVF, Robert Lutulele, said this planning workshop is very important to understand the systems and process on how this project will be coordinated and implemented this year and going forward.
“Unpacking key activities against set targets in the Annual Work Plan and Budget (AWP&B) and who does what, when and how is critical to deliver results on time and within budget.
“Engagement of different stakeholders will strengthen the coordination and implementation of the project in the target provinces,” Mr Lutulele said.
Special Project Manager for CEFI, Busa Wenogo on behalf of Bank of PNG, acknowledge NDAL and FPDA in engaging them to conduct financial inclusion activities to empower the target farmers to do farming as business ultimately improving their livelihoods.
Rufina Peter from IFAD also said forging linkage between large, medium, small and micro partners through the Public, Private, Producer Partnerships (4Ps) is important strategy to drive social and economic empowerment of the target farmers along the fresh produce and galip nut value chain systems.
The target provinces under MVF interventions are Western Highlands, Jiwaka, Simbu, Eastern Highlands, Morobe for Fresh Produce partnerships and East New Britain province for Galip nut partnerships.
The implementation for the first call is expected to be implemented in March or April targeting eight partnerships, and 5000 farming households.
The Market for Village Farmers – Maket Bilong Vilis Fama (MVF) is a Government of PNG project financed by IFAD, executed by National Department of Agriculture & Livestock, and implemented by Fresh Produce Development Agency (FPDA).
The Project Development Objective is to achieve sustainable and increased returns to village farming households from market-oriented production.
The workshop was attended by representatives from Project Coordination Unit under National Department of Agriculture & Livestock (NDAL), International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), Centre for Financial Inclusion (CEFI), FPDA and MVF.