UPCOMING FIT FOR MARKET SUPPORT IN SOMALIA

A meeting with representatives of Somali horticultural companies, cooperatives and producers’ associations was organised in December 2020. Inês Bastos (Regional Programme Manager) and Anita Safi Diazila (Project Officer) introduced COLEACP’s ongoing programmes and activities, and learned more about the activities of the different stakeholders. Requests for Fit For Market programme support following the meeting will lead to the signature of Memoranda of Understanding, with subsequent access to group training, to the COLEACP network, and to e-services (e-learning, e-library, e-GAP).

In 2021, COLEACP will begin working with a leading horticultural company in Somalia to strengthen the technical skills of extension staff on key issues, including food safety, hygiene, traceability, and good agricultural and postharvest practices. COLEACP support will also contribute to capacity building for extension staff to enable them to raise awareness and to train workers and small farmers in good practices using COLEACP’s distinctive training-of-trainers approach.

Before the civil war that began in 1991, bananas and sugarcane were the country’s major cash crops. Due to lack of inputs, drought and poor infrastructure, cash crop production and exports have been declining sharply. In central and southern Somalia, irrigation is restricted to the relatively and continuously diminishing fertile areas around the Shabelle River, where the main crops are maize, rice, sesame, cowpeas, bananas, papayas, lemons, grapefruit and mangoes (source: International Fund for Agricultural Development).