Italian Food Limited is a farming family-based company that was established for the development of agriculture in Sierra Leone. Its main goal is to grow a wide variety of delicious products that benefits Sierra Leone and its Communities. It is against this backdrop that the company has made remarkable progress in the agriculture sector, to help the country achieve food self-sufficiency.
Italian Food Company say in 2020, it made a giant leap towards a better future for Sierra Leone with the support of the current Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Abu Bakarr Karim. It could be recalled that the company donated to the Jeoma Community in the Pujehun District a well-furnished new school structure that can host over 100 pupils with desks, chairs, blackboards, and school materials like books, pencils, sharpeners, etc.
In a related development, the company donated over 800 notebooks to the Ministry of Agriculture for distribution to various chiefdoms, for which the Minister was very pleased and appreciated.
Also, the company renovated the existing school structure for the benefit of the students and community. The school was inaugurated by the Ministers of Education and Agriculture, who expressed nice sentiments about the job done by the Italians and also used the opportunity to inspire the children to treat their education with all seriousness.
Italian Food Limited has in the second quarter of 2020, and with the support of the Agriculture Minister Dr. Abu Bakarr Karim identified a suitable piece of land measuring 484 hectares, which is located three miles from the Freetown/Bo highway close to Yoni Village, for the cultivation of over nine variety of fruits and vegetables including the production of Tomato Sauce that is Made in Sierra Leone.
“We have signed an agreement with the Landowners for which we would like to appreciate them because without them this would not be possible,” says Foglio Giovanni, the Company’s Chief Executive Officer, and further revealed that in late 2020 the company started construction on its farm site. “We have demarcated the farm area and the first thing we are focusing on is to build the accommodations for the local employees that will have bedrooms, bathrooms, a kitchen, dining space,and a clinic together with light and water facilities,” he said and added that will also include a piece of land donated by their company for the employees to cultivate their farm products like rice and cassava. This project will give jobs to over 250 locals and in the future this number will increase exponentially. Although the rains are posing a challenge to the ongoing construction, the project is, however, moving as planned as most of the accommodations for the locals are being completed. “We would like to express our compliments to the employees that are working in the construction for the wonderful job they are doing’’.
The next step, according to the company is to finish the construction of the offices and hangars for the machinery and do the planting as soon as possible so that the first harvesting will happen next year and the product distributed across the country. When completed, the company’s products to be produced are Tomatoes, Sweet Pepper, Fennel, Onions, Watermelons, Melons, Oranges, Lemon, Grapefruits , etc.
