Taiwanese Technical Mission, established in The Gambia in 1995 with the aim of contributing towards the attainment of food security and reducing poverty has so far covered a land area of 1018 with extra 600 and 200 hectares already cleared in Jahally and North Bank Region respectively for the coming season.

This was revealed by Mr. Jame’s Tsay, leader of the mission in The Gambia, during a PowerPoint presentation he made at the Kairaba Beach Hotel last Wednesday at The Gambia’s Business Forum.

The mission, he said, has its station in Sapu in the Central River Region. He said that in collaboration with the National Agricultural Development Agency (NADA) they have prepared a cropping calendar for farmers in the intervention areas geared towards achieving better productivity. He added that they also help farmers with 200 tons of rice seed a year as well as having established a number of farmer’s associations to coordinate rice production, manage a rice mill and to market their rice jointly.
 
The team leader however lamented the fact that they have observed that farmers are very much concerned about food security to the level that they never want to market their produce. “If we eventually have yields potentially they will sell’ he said. Adding, “ Our rice is fresher and of better quality than the imported one”.  Mr. Tsay further revealed that they also assist in the vegetable production and marketing and established an agriculture station centre in Jahally used for training of food producers. The mission he went further also set up an IT centre at Sapu. He finally called on other agencies to also join them to cover more land area for the attainment of food self sufficiency in the country.