The Farmer Managed Rice Irrigation Project last Thursday October 23rd, began a four-day capacity building workshop for forty farmers at Parcharr village in the Lower Fulladu West district, Central River Region.

During the course of the training, participants will be discussing on irrigation systems and maintenance, machines maintenance, environmental management, soil fertility maintenance, sites selection,  water management, land reclamation, and principle of conservation and techniques.

In his opening statement, Landing Sonko, the director of Technical Services said the importance of the training cannot be over-emphasized, as it will help equipe the participants with the skills, knowledge and techniques in rice production. He called for active participation and urged them to put into practice the knowledge and skills they will acquire during the cause of the training.

Ousman Jammeh, the Farmer Managed Rice Irrigation Project monitoring and evaluation officer stated that capacity building is the third component of the project and this will prepare the farmers in rice cultivation modern techniques. He revealed that the project is a five-year project and three thousand three hundred households would benefit from the project. He asserted that the project is being established to empower farmers to improve rice production and productivity in Central River Region.

Momodou Lamin Baldeh, the Chief of the Upper Fulladou district spoke at length on the importance of timely planting in order to have double cropping. He further adviced farmers to adopt the modern farming techniques to eradicate global food crisis and thanked the Farmer Managed Rice Irrigation project for building capacity of farmers in farming techniques.