Monrovia — In fulfillment of the Ministry of Agriculture's new vision to shift from subsistence to mechanized farming, Agriculture Minister, Jeanine Milly Cooper, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with a local farm, Kpawee Farm, for the use of a power tiller in preparation of the planting season.

The power tiller was among several donated agriculture equipment and implements -dusty with spider web increasing on them -have been kept at the ministry's warehouse off Somalia Drive, now renamed Japan Freeway.

A Vietnamese agribusiness company in eastern Cambodia has illegally cleared old-growth forests, wetlands and spiritual sites on land that it pledged to return to indigenous communities. The land move reneges on promises the company, Hoang Anh Gia Lai, made in a mediation process with the World Bank.

New reports from eastern Cambodia say a Vietnamese rubber company has illegally cleared swaths of land in Ratanakiri province belonging to local indigenous communities, in violation of a World Bank-mediated agreement to return the land to local residents. 

YANGON—A Kachin lawmaker voiced concerns in the Upper House of Parliament about an Australian-backed company’s plan to conduct a feasibility study for a large-scale mining exploration project in an area of Myanmar’s northernmost township with snow-capped mountains and a largely untouched environment.

The Resident Minister for North West, Madam Isata Abdulai Kamara, District Agriculture Officer, Charles A. Bangura, and 18 chiefs from 13 chiefdoms in Port Loko on Tuesday 25th February 2020, held a one day high profile consultative meeting with the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry at the administrative headquarters in Port Loko. The District Agriculture Officer, Charles A. Bangura welcomed the Minister’s delegation and gave an overview of the purpose of the ministerial visit.

PETALING JAYA: Sime Darby Plantation Investment (Liberia) Pte Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sime Darby Plantation Bhd (SDP), has fully disposed of Sime Darby Plantation (Liberia) Inc.

The disposal of 100% equity interest to Mano Palm Oil Industries Ltd was completed on Wednesday for a cash consideration of US$1, plus an earn-out payment to be determined by the average future crude palm oil (CPO) price and future CPO production of SDP Liberia in 2022.

The earn-out consideration will be payable quarterly over a period of eight years, commencing from April 2023.

Young people should focus on agriculture, said the Minister of Youth Affair (MOYA), Mohamed Orman Bangura. According to the International Labour Organization data in 2019, the estimated youth unemployment rate in Sierra Leone was at 84.9% and 85.9% in 2018. The Ministry of Youth and the World Food Program (WFP) recently signed an MOU to encourage youth a agriculture project. One of the opportunities the Minister highlighted was through agriculture the economy would stabilize in chiefdoms and districts. He also added agriculture will create jobs for the youth.

Ethiopia's Mursi tribe says they were imprisoned and tortured to protect Chinese sugar plantations.

OMO VALLEY, Ethiopia — One night, in his village of 20 grass huts in Ethiopia’s Omo Valley, Golonkiwo had a nightmare. As a komoru, or mystic of the Mursi tribe, Golonkiwo’s duty is to receive and interpret dream prophecies. It is a vital role, passed down from father to son in one of the world’s oldest surviving cultures.

“In my dream, I saw the government soldiers coming for us,” Golonkiwo stated. “They killed a lot of people.”

Companies are seeking to press ahead with investments on community lands or even take advantage of the pandemic to avoid the usual authorization requirements

A group of 160 poor families from the Bunong indigenous community in Mondulkiri province’s Pech Chreada district have filed a complaint against their representative, accusing him of selling land earmarked for them as part of a social land concession.

Community member Kroeung Tola told The Post on Wednesday that the 160 families were entitled to 2,400ha to be divided between them as stated in a sub-decree in 2012, but as of now, most of the poor families had not received their plots.