Dr Demba Sabally, the new Minister of Agriculture has said his Ministry will be farmer-centred in a bid to harness food self-sufficiency in the country.
“Today our mission is a household name”, he said, while adding that the population is highly dependent on imported products for feeding and it is high time that we started to feed ourselves even with the fact that our youthful population is migrating, coupled with challenges like climate change, and the degrading of our lands. However, our mission must still be accomplished,” he told the meeting.
“My focus is going to be farmer-centred because throughout the past fifty (50) years the Ministry of Agriculture has had a lot of information and projects on agriculture, henceforth we will be having a farmer-centred mindset which means that whatever we do would be for the best interest of the farmers,” he added.
He said by acknowledging all the various presentations made leveraging on the importance of teamwork and said work has commenced and they must work together in order to avoid duplication of efforts.
According to him, he does not intend to work in isolation nor does he intend to get other people also to work in isolation while further imploring everyone to join hands and work together as a team in order to promote their agenda to be able to achieve a common goal.
“Being the Minister of Agriculture to me is a privilege and also a responsibility since our mission as a Ministry is to make The Gambia a hunger-free nation which is not an easy task given all the challenges that we are facing,” he reminded them at the meeting.
In his remarks, Hassan Jallow, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, welcomed the newly appointed Minister and the SMT to the maiden meeting and opened the floor for discussions and presentations.