GCAV begins 6-day training for farmers in NBR

By Omar Bah The Gambia Investment Export Promotion Agency in partnership with Gambia Agricultural Commercialization and Value Chain (GCAV) under the EMPRETEC project recently commences a 6 day’s training for farmer based organizations on entrepreneurship development to promote marketing and value chain on farm products. According to the organisers, the GCAV backed six days training underway in Kerewan is geared towards enhancing entrepreneurship skills to farmers in North Bank Region. The EMPRETEC training manager Yusupha Keita thanked the farmers for their valuable contribution to food production and diversification to enhance food security and sustainable livelihood development in the country. He said farmers should be steadfast to seek information and analyse the outcomes of farming activities to enhance production and productivity. “That’s why we decided to come up with this training which would undoubtedly impact their skills and knowledge in confidence building towards the successful realization of farming. It will also ensure proper marketing of farmers produce to increase income and contribute to poverty reduction,” he said. Sadibou Jammeh, Marketing and Public Relation Manager at GIEPA said EMPRETEC is supported by a United Nations programme established by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) to promote the creation of sustainable, innovative, and internationally competitive small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). “Given the fact that farmers are key component players in the advancement of the country’s economic development GIEPA attaches great importance in their welfares by providing them with skills that would enhance better agricultural programs,” he said. While lauding GCAV for supporting rice and vegetable growers in Central River and North Bank Region to boost production and marketing, he praised the department of Agri Business and Gambia Chambers of Commerce & Industry for their support to the initiative, saying “The training would build the capacity on marketing, simple accounting and record keeping to ensure rights behaviours and competence are apply”. “I’m proud to announce that one thousand and five hundred entrepreneurs were trained through GCAV, GIEPA and EMPRETEC joint initiative whiles over 200 jobs were created and 250 business accounts opened in the process,” he added. Meanwhile, the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer of Agri Business Services at the department of Agriculture Sainey Touray said the department of agriculture attaches great importance to food diversification and Value Chain addition to enhance food production and marketing of farm produce. “The important attached to the MPRETEC Gambia high level training on skills development for farmers on entrepreneurship cannot be overemphasis”.]]>