April 2017
PIFON in partnership with its farmer organisation members has conducted numerous farmer-orientated value chain trainings in the region however this will now be extended to policy makers through a partnership with the EU funded FAO FIRST Project.
Through the European Union and FAO co-funded FIRST Project, the Pacific Island Farmers Organisation Network (PIFON) will be conducting a value chain analysis capacity building training for up to 18 staff members from the Fiji Ministry of Agriculture (MOA).
The three day training will be held at the Coral Coast Christian Camp in Deuba from 26 – 28 April with key experts working in the field of value chains led by Agricultural Economist, Dr. Andrew McGregor. The training will utilize a methodology set out in the CTA-KSP publication ‘Agricultural Value Chain Guide for Pacific Islands’.
The key objective of the training is to strengthen the capacity of Ministry of Agriculture staff to apply value chain analysis to guide the development of targeted sector and sub-sector policies, strategies and action plans. This training also contributes to the overall objective of the FAO FIRST initiative, which is to increase food and nutrition security and sustainability of agriculture production systems by strengthening the enabling environment in the form of policies; programs and legal frameworks; financial resource allocation and capabilities and; governance and stakeholder coordination.
Although PIFON has always provided this Value Chain (VC) training to farmers and farmer organisations, this one will be a first for PIFON to extend its VC Analysis training to Ministry officials who are also considered critical actors in the Value Chain.