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Momodou
Denmark
11840 Posts |
 Posted - 20 Mar 2007 : 13:42:36
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PROVIDE FERTILIZER AND EFFICIENT MARKETING FOR FARMERS - Sidia Jatta
By Abdoulie G. Dibba
The National Assembly member for Wuli West, Honourable Sidia Jatta, asserted that to empower the farming community, they must combat soil infertility and the poor marketing of groundnuts. Sidia made these assertions at the National Assembly while reacting to the President's address delivered at the National Assembly.
In reacting to the address, Sidia told deputies that he would review certain sectors, make suggestions and comments. He said the President himself indicated that agriculture is crucial to the economic life of the country which is agrarian.
He expressed the need and desire to improve it. He noted that the crucial question is how to improve this sector to make it more apt in being the main foreign exchange earner of this country. He said to do this we have to combat many things.
First, they have to combat soil infertility. He said the soil in this country is so much infertile because of over use and fertilizer is extremely expensive. Sidia told deputies that a bag of fertilizer is D500 and added to this there is the increasing lack of motivation in the production of groundnuts in particular.
The reasons for this, he said, have been the issue of marketing groundnuts. He said he expected the president to tell them the problem of marketing groundnuts this year. Sidia argued that somebody in the National Assembly has said that there is no problem in marketing groundnuts this year.
He stressed that there is a problem since there has been no marketing of groundnuts as far as his constituency (Wuli West) is concerned. He told deputies that no single groundnut had been sold in his constituency. He added that if anybody was in doubt of that, he or she should join him in his vehicle after the sitting to ask every village in his constituency whether groundnuts are sold or not. He emphasized that this is due to ceasure of the traditional practice of getting ("seccos") buying stations in different areas of the country to buy groundnuts.
He told deputies that this year, farmers have to take their groundnuts to depots and they do not have to take only a bag or two or even 10 but 5 tonnes. He wondered whether there is any farmer who has produced 5 tonnes this year?
Sidia informed deputies that the groundnut yield this year is low and that he disagreed with anybody who said this year's groundnut production has increased. He stressed that production is low because of the infertility of the soil and that some farmers decided to cultivate less because of the poor marketing of groundnuts experienced last year. Sidia invited his colleagues, the member for Sandu, to go round his constituency where he (Sidia) discovered farmers with nuts amounting to D30, 000, D40, 000, D10, 000 still not paid for. He stressed that he had records of all these. "Huge sums of money are still owed to farmers. That is not any motivation to anybody." This year, he said, the farmers' nuts are still lying down. Sidia thus concluded that in order to empower the farmers, efforts must be made to combat and change all these, noting that they have to be provided with fertilizer.
He reiterated the importance of fertilizer because of the infertility of the soil due to over use and the restrictions imposed by forestry regulations in clearing their other farm lands which they have left to follow for many years. He said that the fertilizer should be provided at affordable prices.
Sidia stressed that that is the only way they can empower farmers to increase production of groundnuts. Sidia told deputies that if they fail to do that, they will never empower the farmers to increase the production of groundnuts. He said farmers will produce groundnuts next year because of the unaffordability of fertilizer and the poor marketing experienced each year.
Source: Foroyaa Newspaper Burning Issue
Issue No. 32/2007, 19 - 20 March 2007
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