Alofisa Saufua, from the village of Alamutu, Saleimoa, says their village has all the means to make a lot of money through agriculture.

But they have a problem. There is no specific place to sell them.

The village currently shares a small table by the road to sell their crops and they feel that can do so much more if they had a small market place to call their own.

Alofisa says that with more and more of their villagers working in companies like Yazaki and earning less than farmers, they need to draw them back into farming and the best place to start is with a better market to sell produce.

He says farming is important to many villages so the Government should look into building small market places for the villages to continue with their agricultural practices.

“The table you see here is our village market,” Alofisa told the Village Voice.

“Everyone brings what they grow and sell it here on this one table. We have a lot of people in our village working at Yazaki and even though we don’t make much money from this market, it’s still more than what people earn at that company.

“That’s how important farming work is here in our village; we know we can earn more than a lot of the working people.

“We all sell pineapples, pawpaws, bananas and other crops.”

Already making $100 a day with a shared table, Alofisa says they can make more if they weren’t limited by a small area to sell.

 “People here can make up to $100 a day if sales are really good,” he said.

“The only problem is that we share a small table. So since farming is a great way to earn money, my village really needs a proper market place.

“We make enough money to take care of our family’s needs so we need a proper place to sell what we have.”

Alofisa also says that more attention needs to be given to Samoa’s farming community.

“The village can’t go on sharing a small table because it limits our sales and puts people off of farming,” he said.

“We need to put more of a spotlight on farmers because we earn more than people who work. This is how village people make money fast and we need to take care of that.

“Through farming you can make and hold $50 every single day unlike workers who have to wait a week or two to be able to hold onto their pay.”

According to Alofisa, there is no poverty in Samoa, just poverty of opportunity.

“I don’t believe that Samoa has poverty,” he said.

“If we took care of things that matter such as farmers, then we won’t have any struggles in Samoa. If you work hard on the land then you can earn quite a bit of money.

“We just really need help to build a small market place for our village so we can expand on our farming work. That’s my only request to the government.

“As I mentioned before, a lot of the village’s young adults work at Yazaki but it’s a waste of time.

“We always tell them that they should just come and be a farmer because you can make more. But if there is no market place here then it’s harder to persuade them.”