Pelum Lesotho Profile
PELUM Lesotho has a membership of 20. With its main aim of facilitating and coordinating learning and networking in participatory ecological land use management, PELUM Lesotho is implementing various capacity building and trade and marketing related activities.
- Capacity Building: These include workshops on mainstreaming HIV/AIDS, documentation and communication, facilitating farmer organisation, meetings on the growth of smallholder farming, advocacy on food security and sustainable land use agriculture as well as on trade and marketing agricultural produce.
- Trade and Marketing: Activities have included farmer to farmer regional exchange visits to encourage policy debate, dialogue designed to contribute to information sharing on issues concerning free and fair trade farmer rights, workshop on policy analysis of Lesotho Agricultural Products and national seed fairs. Other activities include collecting and disseminating information on trade, training farmers on organic certification movements, establishing market database for farmer produce and monitoring and evaluation of the planning and advisory system. PELUM Lesotho has also held Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAS) workshops to ensure that farmers are kept abreast with the EPAS and the negotiation process. Other activities include:
- Helping and supporting small-scale farmers in Lesotho to understand the concepts related to ecological land use management through giving and sharing of information, facilitation or networking and lobbying on their behalf.
- Facilitating exchanges with similar organisations in the region in order to advocate and lobby for sustainable agricultural systems and appropriate measures leading towards food security.
- Helping small scale farmers protect and support local knowledge systems and innovations where applicable.
- Help and facilitate efforts of small-scale farmers to market their produce at competitive prices.
- Collaborating with local, national and international public and private organisations pursuing aims and objectives similar to those of PELUM Lesotho.
- Developing and institutionalise a campaign, advocacy and lobbying culture through capacity building which addresses policies in food security and land use in order to support poverty alleviation and sustainable livelihoods.
In an attempt to achieve these objectives, PELUM Lesotho, through its Country Desk, has effectively accomplished and planned for the following; Contextualised HIV/AIDS regional policy into PELUM Lesotho member context. Similarly contextualised PELUM Association stand on GMOs and made comments on the Draft Biosafety Bill completed a research Project on SADPMA focusing on the Mountain areas in Lesotho. In addition, the desk has implemented and completed the survey on agricultural budgeting, held a stakeholder workshop on the survey that drew the academia, NGOs, government, UN staff and farmers as well as disseminated the final report to the public using the media. Due to the survey, there is a national debate on the democratization of budgeting in Lesotho.
| Latest News | Success Stories | Strategic Plan | Our Partners |