The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), Government of Japan in partnership with the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) is implementing the ‘Capacity Building Project for Farmer’s Organizations to support the development of Food Value Chain in Asia and Africa’ for three years starting 2020. The project comprises of three training courses for the strengthening of management, empowering of women and strengthening of marketing of cooperatives, and a follow-up guidance and survey of ex-participants.
The training course on “Strengthening of Marketing through Improvement of Quality of Farm Produce and Expansion of Marketing Channels-2022” started on 22 November. The 25 days training course is being held in collaboration with the Institute for the Development of Agricultural Cooperation in Asia (IDACA-Japan). It aims to contribute to the development of agricultural cooperatives and the improvement of their members’ living standards by improving the agriproducts quality, access to markets of high value-added products and more involvement in food value chain through the strengthening of business economies in Asia and Africa, where initiatives for organizing agricultural cooperatives are making headway.
The inaugural ceremony was attended by Mr. Hideo Kawakami, Senior Regional Coordinator, Export and International Affairs Bureau, MAFF; Mr. Kobayashi Hirofumi, Executive Director, IDACA; Ms. Yuki Irisawa, Course Coordinator, IDACA; Ms. Eiko Oshita, IDACA; Mr. Ashok Taneja, Advisor, ICA-AP; Ms. Shivali Sarna, Lead – Communication & Membership Development and Education and Course Coordinator, ICA-AP, and participants of the training course. Mr. Balasubramanian Iyer, Regional Director, ICA-AP congratulated the participants via a video message.
9 participants from 7 countries – India, Nepal, Philippines, Malaysia, and Thailand in Asia and Cameroon and Rwanda in Africa are participating in the training. They will learn about the agriculture and fisheries cooperatives in Japan, their business development and marketing strategies, the concept of food value chain, safety procedures, and case studies of successful agricultural cooperatives.
