The 3rd Agribusiness Forum held in Ramallah
The Ministry of Agriculture, the extension of rural development department by cooperation with EVAP project funded from JICA was held the 3rd agribusiness forum in Ramallah by presence of 16 cooperative association and 21 company and traders whom they are working in the agriculture sector in the different directorates and a big amount of agriculture extensions and experts in this field, beside the expert Japanese team Mr.Takahisa AMANO, Mr. Masahiko TANIGUCHI, Mr. Kunio ENUE, Mr. Lalith DEVASIRI, and representative from JICA office.
Mr. Amin Abu Al-soud the project operation manager stress on the purpose of like these forums is to exchange the experiences and information"s and to know the new agriculture techniques also to know the local market needs by networking among the agriculture associations from one side and the traders from the other side , so the aims of this forum is to contribute of reduce the cost of agriculture production and increase productivity and improve farmers income and profitability beside to dispense the agriculture Israeli products by provision of alternative national Palestinian products.
The role of extensions in this forum is to facilitate the interaction and the connection between farmers and information providers in an easy way. Beside the empowerment of the extensions and the specialist whom they are responsible to prepare an extension plan that built depends on the priorities and the needs of the farmers and the local market that can be contribute in re-profiling the tradition of agriculture production that can be increase farm sales and profit.
In this forum 20 company and traders was participate from different categories such as fresh vegetable traders, fodder and livestock traders, agriculture production needs, boiled and fresh cheese traders, jammed traders also agriculture machines traders, beside of that it was organized 6 technical extension parts distributed thoughtfully in the hall of this forum related to all the new technical agricultural that EVAP project insertion and submit to 16 cooperative associations in the JRRV area by the cooperation with the agriculture extension team in Tubas, Nablus, and, Jericho.
Mr. Ibrahim Qteshat present his speech he is the general director of extension department and rural development, also Ms. Sakiko YOSHINAMI representative from JICA in Palestine and during the forum it was held several activities the most important was matching between the cooperative associations and traders.
And, at the end, the project management of EVAP and the ministry saw that like these forums can be contribute in enhancing the efficiency of the agriculture extension services that submitted to the farmers not only in the JRRV areas but also, in all the west bank directorates, so this forum will be one of the most important extension ways that used in updating the farmers information"s and extensions and convoy the developed in the local market so that the extension services provided based on the market needs.
The participants thanked the Japanese government and JICA and EVAP Management that gave them the chance to participate in like these activities that can improve the level of the extension services and improve the Palestinian farmers abilities, and the food security for the rural families in Palestine.