The National Seed Policy for the Gambia was last Monday validated at a one-day seed forum held at the Paradise Suites hotel in Kololi.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the forum, Lamin Jobe, Director General of National Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) said that the importance of agriculture to the sub-region especially the Gambia could not be over emphasised.

He observed that food production have reduced drastically over the years due to poor soil fertility, inefficient marketing outlets, and coherency policies among others.

“Seed is the foundation for any meaningful growth,” he said while challenging participants to take the forum seriously.

For his part, David W, Bowen, FAO Representative in the Gambia expressed FAO’s readiness in working with the government and the private sector towards achieving sustainable long-term seed program for the Gambia. He applauded the tasked force committee for drafting the Gambia National Seed Policy.

In his keynote address, Hon. Kanja Sanneh, Secretary of State for Agriculture said the main objective of the forum was to validate and update the draft national seed policy, which according to him is part of an ongoing seed project between his department of state and FAO.

“In recent times, the Gambia as also in the case with many African countries has battled with the challenge posed by food insecurity, which threatens many of our countries. Although there have been some natural causes of food insufficiency but the major part of this situation can be traced to serious shortcomings, which exist in the crop production capabilities.