One of the objectives of this year's Meet-the-People tour was to dialogue with the people in the various regions to get them hear out their challenges for possible solutions, which include helping farmers get a better market for their farm produce.
In an interview with Malleh Sallah, a farmer in Kerewan Samba Sirra community in the Central River Region, with sad expression welcomes the D32,000 government stated price per ton of groundnuts. He said as a poor farmer who struggles to feed his family, he expressed his appreciation that as Head of State, it's President Barrow who could buy their groundnuts at better prices.
Sallah noted that in most cases, they the farmers face challenges as they couldn't afford to buy fertilizer due to its high cost which leads to debt in order to do farming.
He added that initially, it was the Chinese people who would come to buy their groundnuts at good price which they eventually use to pay their debts and feed their families with the remaining balance. He added that without the Chinese in recent years, they would have faced so much hardship than encountered already.
He further appealed to President Barrow to also look after them, particularly the poor farmers in remote rural communities with much consideration.
"If we harvest our groundnuts without costumers with better prices, it's really backward to our farming activities as we entirely depend on farming to feed our families with little local farm tools," he stated while thanking the Chinese for supporting them over the years in buying their groundnuts.
