A Bread Advocate Blogs About His Work with Agricultural Business Centers in Sierra Leone

Leadership team of Tawopaneh ABC in Kamaranka

Bread for the World advocate Brendan Rice is spending the next year in Salone, Sierra Leone, as an intern for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).  His work supports the Sierra Leone government's  Smallholder Commercialization Program (SCP).

To document his experiences, Brendan created the blog Brown Rice.

Here is an excerpt from his Feb. 24 post, entitled "Road Trip Upcountry, in which he visited several agricultural business centers (ABCs).

[Agricultural Business Centers]are run by farmers, and they offer services such as access to good inputs, trading, group marketing, storage of farmers’ products, etc. These services allow for smallholder farmers to overcome the many challenges they face in order to move beyond subsistence agriculture (growing just enough to meet one’s own food needs). If smallholder farmers can increase their productivity and connect to markets, then poverty is reduced and food security is strengthened. At the core, this is what the ABCs are all about.

Read more about poverty in Sierra Leone.

(Brendan, an alumnus of  Bread for the World's Hunger Justice Leaders program, has been involved in the anti-hunger movement through Universities Fighting World Hunger, Oxfam America and other organizations. This year he received a special recognition: the William Jefferson Clinton Hunger Leadership Award).