Story from White Plains, Rural Montserrado County – LAC/UMC
In an attempt to sustain and increase food production across the Liberia annual conference of the United Methodist Church, Bishop Samuel Quire dedicates UMRAP’s multi-purpose farm at White Plains in rural Montserrado County.
Bishop Samuel Quire in his dedicatory remarks expressed gratitude to God for the dedication of the United Methodist Church Agriculture facility at White Plains and said, before the civil war there were a lot of said facilities in the country that once enhanced food security.
He indicated that his dream is to see the facility at White Plains turn into a demonstration center for agriculture Activities across the Liberia Annual Conference.
The Director of UMRAP Rev Joseph Theoway said financial situation of the country ye the LAC grossly impacted the agriculture program of the the Church to the extent that the entire program became inactive, something that brought the entire program under serious scrutiny.
The goals of the entire agriculture program got revived thus making it to align with the vision of Bishop Samuel Quire, Jr. His vision takes into consideration agricultural development, food security and poverty reduction nation wide.
Bishop Quire’s vision for agriculture was contained in his first Episcopal address and it called for the Agriculture Department of the UMC to get engaged into cash and food crops production in an endeavor to empower to LAC of the United Methodist Church to provide support to its pastors, congregations, ministry areas and programs.
These recommendations were endorsed by delegates at the 184th annual session of the Conference through a resolution that effected the renaming of the program from UMCAP to UMRAP and it’s new mandate has been to resuscitate the LAC/UMC’s agriculture program by restructuring the agriculture committee that now include sub committee at both District, Circuit and Local Church levels while also strengthening its outreach and extension programs through the provision of capacity building training and technical support to districts, rural congregations, school based agriculture initiatives and farming communities.
The UM agriculture project in review evolved out of the vision of the late Bishop of the Sierra Leone Episcopal Area, the late Bishop John K Yamasu. That plan seeks to optimize the use of existing lands and others to include human resources within the United Methodist Church in Africa.
The Yamasu Agriculture Initiative (YAI) project-Liberia has three key primary objectives and they are namely capacity building, food production, market access, and livelihood; said project is centered around the strengthening and promotion of market access for agriculture commodities being produced in White Plains.