By Mustapha Darboe
The Department of Agriculture (DoA) on Saturday and Sunday, the 5th and 6th October 2019 conducted a step down training for farmers across three (3) regions in the country. Held at Somita Mixed Farming Centre in Foni, West Coast Region, the training attracted a total number of thirty-Nine (39) participants from Lower River Region (LRR), West Coast Region WCR) and Kanifing Municipality.
The objective of the training was to remind and refresh participants’ knowledge with regards to production in their vegetable garden schemes. This is expected to help in maximizing their production output, if applied accordingly, by the farmers. The training was sponsored by FASDEP Project through the Department of Agriculture.
In his opening remarks, the Director of the DoA, Dr. Saikou E. Sanyang, took the opportunity to thank the FASDEP Project for its role in trying to complement government’s efforts in trying to attain food sufficiency in the country. He assured the farmers that the government would continue to give them support as Agriculture is key to life; that without Agriculture there won’t be any clothing, food or medicine for mankind.
Dr. Sanyang told the farmers that government is aware of the role they are playing, especially the women farmers, as statistic had shown that 80% of women in the country engaged in Agricultural activities; “this shows the important role they are playing in the sector”.
The Director urged the farmers to take the training seriously as that’s not a first time training for many of them, but it’s a refresher training because many of them have benefitted from such trainings before.
Dr. Sanyang advised the farmers to ask as many questions as possible, and share the knowledge with other farmers from different regions with regards to things that are not clear to them, reasoning that such gatherings don’t mean only the facilitators are experts; “but we have experts among farmers themselves who have vast experience in production-so it’s an opportunity for everyone to learn”.
He further enjoined farmers to give feedback to other members of their gardens when they return back to their respective places, reminding that they were all there to represent groups from different gardens. “If this is done, then everyone will benefit from the knowledge learned,” the DOA boss held.
Mr. Edrisa C.Y. Sey from the Directorate Office in Yundum, West Coast Region, in his presentation dealt with Group Management and importance of registering Groups or Kafoos with the Agric-Business.
During his presentation, he explained to the gathered farmers the importance of having groups or Kafoos in their gardens, saying that would create opportunity for them to be able to seek fundings for themselves, and other benefits could easily reach them through groups and not individually.
In his exposition, Sey also outlined the importance of having rules and regulations that would guide them as a group, in order to avoid conflicts within themselves. He enlightened them on how to select a leader and what are the qualities of a good leader.
Underscoring the importance of a good leader in a group, Sey hinted that the leader’s actions would determine “if the group will attain their goals and objectives or not”. He also said it’s important to have a time-frame attached to their positions, regarding the number of years an individual could serve within a particular position. This, he stated, is one way to keep their groups away from conflicts.
During this presentation, some farmers also contributed and shared their different experiences with regards to group leadership and how to avoid conflicts within groups.
Mr. Lamin Darboe from the Plant Protection Services, during his presentation, had an interactive session with the farmers with regards to pest and disease control in their gardens. His topic of discussion was centered on Integrated Pest Management.
On ways to avoid pest and disease outbreaks in their gardens, the Plant Protection official pinpointed sanitation as one of the things that they could adopt in their gardens, nothing this doesn’t attract any cost to them, but would rather help save them money that they would spend in buying pesticides.
During the deliberations, he told the farmers that, at the start of any production season all the residues from plants and existing plants from previous production season in the garden should all be discarded and burnt so as to cut the disease life cycle if there is any within the garden.
Another thing he recommended to the farmers is observation, which is very important to timely detection of pest and disease outbreak. If observation is done timely, Darboe is optimistic that it would help them to control the disease and pest outbreak timely, and “if any cost will be used, then it will be minimum”.
According to him also, seed selection is one important thing to determine farmers’ yields, and to that effect, he advised them to avoid buying seeds from unrecognized dealers and seeds that are not in containers having specifications and labels.
He cautioned the farmers that transporting of seedlings from other locations to their gardens could lead to disease transferring from one location to another; so his advice to them was to start up their own nursery, doing soil sterilization first.
Another facilitator at the training was Mr. Nfally Khan. During his presentation, he informed the farmers that one thing to do before the start of any production season is to ask yourself three (3) questions, to wit: What to grow? When to grow? and How to grow it?
“If these questions are answered properly, then every farmer is assured of success in his garden after producing,” was Mr. Darboe’s settled view, as he took through what kind of location, land and soil are ideal for vegetable production.
According to Khan, farmers should start seeing their production as investment, so that every money spent within the farm should be recorded.This would help them to determine what their farm returns would be at the end of the production season, as he told them.
At the end of the training, recommendation was made for the establishment of a WhatsApp Group chat which would be used to disseminate market information on different vegetable produce in different markets. The rationale is enable farmers to be working for themselves and not for the middle men.
It’s believed that if information is adequately disseminated about the prices of the produce at different locations, it would help reduce spoilage of farmers’ produce, that mostly happens.
