Mrs Yassin Khan Jallow, Monitoring and Evaluation Officer for the Gambia Emergency Agricultural Production Project (GEAPP) has revealed that the project has started the distribution of farming materials, including sixty thousand (60, 000) bags of NPK fertiliser and 300 power tillers to ten districts.
She made this disclosure during her presentation at a one-day NGO field staff orientation on GEAPP, held at the Wellingara Model Horticultural Centre on Tuesday.
According to her, this year farmers will have enough seeds of about 10, 000 bags of seeds and other farming implements through the GEAPP project.
Giving an overview of the project, Mrs. Khan said GEAPP and other NGOs deem it necessary to have a one-day orientation workshop to sensitise field officers on what the project is all about, what plans are being put ahead and what are the responsibilities of the field staff.
She used the opportunity to commend the Deputy Minister, Permanent Secretary and the Minister of Agriculture for the support accorded them during the implementation of the locust project.
According to Mrs Khan-Jallow, the then locust project existed in seven countries and The Gambia was recommended as the best country due to its commitment.
"We were able to achieve this success, thanks to the support of NGOs and other collaborators," she stated.
For his part, the Project Coordinator, Sheikh Tijan Sosseh said the GEAPP project is here to complement the B component of the African Emergency Locust Project.
According to him, component B of the AELP was to help restore the agricultural production capacity of 230 communities in The Gambia that were most affected by the 2004/2005 locust invasion. He said the success that the AELP have achieved is as a result of collective efforts of stakeholders, including the NGOs.
According to Mr. Sosseh, in agriculture they are just players and thus cannot do it alone. "There must be partners, especially the NGOs," he said. He stated that the GEAPP project is here to strengthen the agricultural production and productive capacity of the most vulnerable district or farmers to the food crisis.
