By Ismaila Sonko
Assan Jallow, permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture has said that the aim of the Ministry is to transform the agricultural sector into a modern sustainable and marketing oriented agricultural and livestock sectors to increase food and nutrition security, employment generation, poverty reduction and economic transformation.
He said that most of the staff in the agricultural sectors is facing challenges in terms of the capacity building and that is part of the challenges we are facing as a body right now.
Jallow, made this remarks before the Select Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development at the National Assembly recently.
He noted that major markets in the country did not have the storage facilities to keep their garden products and that give lot of challenges to the ministry.
He explained that: “We have selected various cash crops in other to improve the food chain system but we did not give much attention to the market,”
He also said that the agriculture extension workers at the rural areas are not many that is why they find it difficult to meet all the farmers and discuss the difficulty they are facing in the farming activities.
He added that the government is involved on the land development because we know that land owners cannot use all the land and for that been the Case; we are trying to give the private sectors chance to come and be part of the land on development.
He noted that mechanization policy has not developed to train the youth on how to operate on farm machinery in order to develop the farm mechanization in the country.
PS said all the department in the agricultural sector prepare their own budget for the recommendation before sending to the Ministry of Finance to make their final say about the budget from the Ministry of Agriculture.
Lamin J. Sanneh, National Assembly Member for Brikama South told the PS Jallow that agriculture will not be developed in this country without the policy implementation at the agricultural sectors.
The National Assembly Select Committee on Agriculture and rural development calls on the PS to engage the Select Committee on all their agriculture activities in order to develop the agriculture for the betterment of the country.
