MONROVIA, LIBERIA-Liberia’s international partners have, for the first time, agreed to provide direct technical and financial support to the production of the Country’s staple food, rice.

The World Bank, European Union, and African Development Bank said such support is crucial to reducing the country’s dependency on the importation of rice.

Liberia’s agriculture and finance authorities are holding high–level talks with the development partners to conclude on technical details of their support to the proposed rice project.

Agriculture Minister Jeannie Cooper made the disclosure on Tuesday, July 17, 2023, at the launch of the Fourth Edition of the World Bank Economic Forum Update on Liberia in Monrovia.

Minister Jeannie Cooper said:” The Liberian Government is intentional about increasing rice production and reducing the importation of the commodity.”

In a related development, farmers and agriculture cooperatives in Bong, Rivercess, and Gbarpolu Counties are expected to benefit from a donation of several farming equipment and tools worth over six-hundred-thousand United States Dollars.

The donation is being made possible by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) under the Accelerated Community Development Programme, a flagship program launched by President George Weah in November 2022.

According to a release issued recently, UNDP has procured fourteen tractors and trailers to enhance the labor capacity of farming cooperatives to use a mechanized approach to farming.

Over eighteen thousand pieces of assorted basic farming tools, including rice, cassava, sugar cane milling machines, thirty-four sets of post-harvest processing machines, and rice thresher, will also be turned over to the farmers.

They will be distributed to identified cooperatives and individual farmers in beneficiary communities in the targeted counties.