The Director General of the Department of Agriculture, Dr. Saikou E. Sanyang has urged the farmers in the North Bank Region (NBR) to share information relating to their production yield with staff of the Department during their Monitoring and Evaluation (M & E) process.
This, he believed, would enable his department to know farmers’ production yield, thereby helping them in planning for future assistance to farmers. Dr. Sanyang made these remarks during the recent handing over of vegetable seeds to beneficiaries, held at the Regional Agricultural Directorate in Kerewan, NBR.
It could be refreshed that the Horticulture Technical Services Unit of the Department of Agriculture with support from the Japan Kennedy Round 2 Project (KR2), has conducted a nationwide vegetable seeds distribution tour ahead of the upcoming dry season vegetable productions.
“The relationship between the Department of Agriculture and farmers is symbiotic in nature, as none can progress without the other,” Dr. Sanyang informed the audience. He revealed also that before the rainy season, the governments of Japan and The Gambia have partnered to provide assistance to farmers in the form of 700 tons of fertilizer and 50 tons of groundnut to upland farmers.
According to the DG, it’s still in line with the same spirit that Japan, through KR2 project, purchased large numbers of farm equipment such as power tillers, and also vegetable seeds to empower women vegetable production. Giving the rationale for the assistance to farmers, the senior Agric official said one of the reasons is to counter the effects of climate change since rainy season is usually unpredictable and consequently, affects productivity.
DG Sanyang stressed to the beneficiaries that the farm inputs are “quite expensive and very hard” for an individual farmer to afford; he therefore, advised them to use the seeds for its intended purpose.
While acknowledging the substantial sum of money spent on the seeds, he thanked the Japanese government for the ‘commendable’ assistance.
