By: Ramsey N Singbeh Jr
Email: director@news.throngtalk.com
Contact: +231772641146 / 880147358
Save the Children Liberia through its Learn II program which is a follow on initiative after Learn focused on holistic school health and nutrition intervention to lead school communities, local government and private sector along a sustainable path toward local management of school feeding is currently serving students in Grand Gedeh and River Gee Counties with a special meal called ‘Power Gari’.
Power Gari is a nutritious focused gari having soil beans and micro nutrients as parts of its components. Soil beans, a new type of beans comprising of all the necessary nine amino acids brought into Liberia from Burkina Faso, Nigeria and Ivory Coast by Kawada Farm Liberia.
The program is done in partnership with Kawada Farm Liberia based in Ganta, Nimba County with the United States Department of Agriculture or USDA being the donor through Save the Children.
Speaking to reporters recently, Dina Rakoto, the Chief of Party of Save the Children Learn II Project said their local and regional procurement strategic objective 1 is to improve effectiveness of food assistance through local and regional procurement.
She said they also work toward cost-effectiveness and timelines of food assistance and utilization of nutritious and culturally accepted food that meet quality standard.
She added that they are supporting about 252 schools in Liberia so Kawada Farm Liberia which produces the power gari is the right partner to support their school feeding activities under the strategic objective 1.
Also speaking, the Chief Executive Officer or CEO of Kawada Farm Liberia, Kokpor Daynuah says Kawada Farm Liberia is a farm and agro processing company based in Ganta, Nimba County involved with the production of cassava, soil beans and a product called power gari. The power gari is done in partnership with Save the Children through the USDA Project called ‘Learn II’.
Kawada Farm Liberia produces and sells the power gari to Save the Children which feeds school going kids in Grand Geddeh and River Gee Counties. Kawada Farm Liberia according the CEO Daynuah gives soil beans to farmers and it is a new bean that has all the nine essential amino acids which along with micro nutrients makes the gari a power gari.
They, he added are the first company in Liberia producing soil beans through a pilot with about 100 farmers with each of the farmers cultivating about 1 acre of land which is sold to Kawada Farm Liberia during harvest.
He said super gari is sugar focused but power gari is nutritious focused adding that they also have a vitamin A cassava that they include into the power gari that also is a mixture of sugar, salt, micro nutrients (a combination of essential vitamins and minerals).
According to him, the power gari creates a balanced diet for the children and it is also sold to schools that want it.
He maintained that effectively January 2024, they will start the retail packs of the gari because a lot of people express interest in the gari which cost L$ 50 for the retail pack.
Kokpor Daynuah stated that they have been into farming since 2013. He told reporters that they have scaled up the soil beans project with the support of Mercy Corps through their program Prosper 4 funded by Sweden because it is very costly to import it as it is grown in Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast but they tested the soil of Liberia and it proved to be suitable for the production of the beans.
They, he mentioned give the seeds of the soil beans free of charge to the farmers and provide expertise for them, go into memorandum of understanding where the farmers only need to call them during production and tell them the cost of the soil beans to be purchased by Kawada Farm Liberia.
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