Kalanthuba Chiefdom

CHIEFDOM ESTABLISHES NEW MARKETING AGENCY

CASSAVA PROJECT UNDERWAY 

PC Alimamy Baio Yembe II has announced the creation of a chiefdom agency to market local agricultural produce to non-local buyers. The Chiefdom Council approved a resolution on 12 May establishing the Kalanthuba Agricultural Marketing Agency for Development (KAMADE). The initial marketing focus of the new agency is cassava, Sierra Leone’s second staple crop. The new chiefdom agency will operate by creating a commercial hub, K-Hub, to link village growers with more distant urban buyers. The PC has organized a Task Force to engage selected villages in increasing cassava production and to secure external buyers. The intended market consists of cassava processing businesses that produce flour and other cassava-based products.

K-Hub is designed to be a social business aimed at community development, as illustrated in the figure shown above. K-Hub will purchase designated crops from village out-growers for sale to pre-arranged buyers; after covering its costs, K-Hub’s remaining earnings will be deposited in a Community Development Fund to support improved communal resources, facilities, and services, including schools, roads, clinics, water resources, and sanitation. Access to more distant markets will both reward growers and enhance communal services.

In addition to marketing, KAMADE will also seek funding for a processing unit to begin processing cassava locally, increasing the share of cassava’s economic value that is retained in the chiefdom. Although cassava is the initial focus crop, the chiefdom enterprise intends to develop markets for a variety of farm produce in the near future.

As a social business, K-Hub seeks economic growth to enhance community development in Kalanthuba. Villages participating in the cassava project are organizing teams of both men and women, who contribute in diverse ways to cassava production, and who will therefore share equally in the proceeds from cassava sales. Chiefdom leaders at all levels are determined that all community members, men and women, youth and elders, must share equitably in the fruits of economic growth.

Plans were laid for the marketing initiative in a two-day workshop for chiefdom leaders hosted by the PC in April and led by development specialists from Houghton University (USA) and Land for Life (Freetown).