The Ambassador of Sierra Leone to Brussels, H. E Samuel Tamba Musa, has held a consultative meeting with Jan Hak chairman of the Netherlands Agro-Food and Technology Centre (NAFTC), at the Clootwijck Almkerk, Netherlands.
The consultative meeting is a follow-up to a previous meeting that identified new opportunities in the areas of Agriculture, Water, and Sustainable Energy that are consistent with priorities of the Government of Sierra Leone.
The Ambassador disclosed that the government has put in place new policies and programmes in the context of agricultural commercialization to boost the sector. To this end, the government has encouraged the involvement of the private sector as a major player.
Ambassador Musa maintained that collecting data for artificial intelligence and precision agriculture are innovations that can contribute to agricultural productivity and production and the Ministry is in a position to collaborate with the Centre and has a planning, monitoring and evaluation department that deals with agricultural agronomic data collection and analysis.
He stressed that while agribusiness is an important sector to focus on, the desired connections can come from different fields, including industry, services, education, technology and culture.
Ambassador Musa stated that he is interested in working with the company to promote the objectives that were outlined for the coordination group. As an Embassy, our objectives include identifying and exploring opportunities for companies and businesses to establish and deepen trade and investment relationships between Sierra Leone and our accredited countries.
On the issue of Carbon capture which is beginning to play a major role on the country’s agenda , Ambassador Musa noted that other stakeholders have engaged him on the issue.
Regarding the intention to forge fruitful partnership with Sierra Leone, Chairman of NAFTC, Jan Hak, said: “I am at an age where I like to help African countries to come to the same standards as us, same wealth and income. I want to work with a strategic team for one year and make it happen”.
NAFTC’s work in the area of energy and Agriculture Intelligence were showcased by members of the team. In the sector related to Energy, Coen van Driel provided analysis on the scope of their work, focusing on reducing the footprint in energy consumption and making energy consumption sustainable.
He also mentioned that their energy, solar/wind, gas, liquid fuels and heat/cold systems are connected to various consumer sectors and industries to build the environment, enhance agriculture mobility, and fully optimize the energy system based on Co-creation with customers in the design and installation of smart, innovative and integrated energy generation and storage-consumption systems.
