Liberian Farmer Begins Anew with Help from ACDI/VOCA’s LIFE Project

Edwin Flomo remembers the bad times during the 14 years of civil war in Liberia.

"The war was hard," Flomo says. "There was no mobility. It was dangerous everywhere."

But Liberia’s fortunes have improved. With peace declared in 2003, Liberians are coming back to rebuild their communities, till the soil on their farms and begin their lives anew.

A Chance to Rebuild

Flomo (pictured at left), who is a pastor at a Lutheran church in the town of Sanoyea in northern Liberia, also looks with optimism to Liberia's future. After he came back from the refugee camps with his wife and son, he discovered his farm overgrown and in disrepair. When he heard that ACDI/VOCA's Livelihood Improvement for Farming Enterprises (LIFE) program was teaching skills to smallholder farmers in Sanoyea, he and other farmers seized the chance to rebuild their farms.

LIFE focuses on teaching cocoa farmers modern techniques and helps them diversify their incomes by growing different kinds of crops.

Liberia has the potential to fill a large gap in cocoa production worldwide, but the civil war left farms in disrepair, many farmers lost their cocoa-growing skills, and residual tensions from the war make it hard to get farmers to work in groups. LIFE works to overcome these challenges by training farmers through such practical methods as farmer field schools, demonstration sites where farmers host group training sessions, show off improved techniques and encourage other farmers to adopt them.

The First Step in His New Life

Flomo is one such farmer. He hosts a farmer field school on his farm and proudly shows the fruits of his labor. He sees growing cocoa as the first step in his new life since the war. He plans to enlarge his farm to grow more cocoa as well as additional crops, such as tomatoes, corn and peppers, to feed his family and increase his income.

Flomo says that the future looks promising for Liberia and people are building schools and investing in their communities. Liberians are not longer afraid. “Now,” Flomo says, "people walk anywhere."

To learn more about the LIFE program, click here.