The Managing Director of Samoa Coconut Cluster - Farmers Direct Ltd., Edwin Tamasese, is heading to the United States of America.

He has been chosen as Samoa’s candidate for the United State’s Government International Visitor Leadership Programme (I.V.L.P.).

This was announced by the U.S. Embassy in Samoa.

Attempts to get a comment from Mr. Tamasese were unsuccessful.

In the announcement, the Embassy said Mr. Tamasese would be taking part in an international exchange programme alongside 25 participants from various countries. The programme includes travels to various states in the U.S. from April 29 - May 15.

The programme aims to examine U.S. policies and programmes related to agricultural trade, food safety and sustainable agriculture.

The participants will analyze political, social, environmental and economic forces that influence U.S. agricultural trade policies.

Furthermore, assessing how programmes for agricultural research, inspection, trade promotion and resource conservation help ensure U.S. agricultural competitiveness in the global marketplace.

Mr. Tamasese is the Managing Director of Samoa Coconut Cluster - Farmers Direct Ltd, a virgin organic coconut oil manufacturing company in Samoa.

In addition he manages Soil Health Pacific Ltd - Growing a healthy future, a company that has diverse agricultural operations from free range poultry egg production, market garden vegetable operations and fertilizer manufacturing.

Mr. Tamasese also runs farmer training programmes in Samoa and has also had the opportunity to share his knowledge and training in tropical agriculture in Papua New Guinea, Fiji and American Samoa.

Prior to working in these areas, Mr. Tamasese worked for nine years for Visy Industries, Australia’s largest packaging and recycling company in the areas of Quality Control, manufacturing systems, GMP, HACCP and Logistics efficiencies.