Farmers urged to grow more maize

 

According to him, farmers should not concentrate on Nerica production at the expense of other crops, noting that maize also has high potentials to be successful as the Nerica rice. He said farmers in the country have registered tremendous success in Nerica production within three years, saying that farmers should use year 2010 to diversify to other crops particularly maize.

 

He informed that his department currently has a host of maize varieties which they are evaluating for suitability of production across the country. Currently, there are six good seed varieties which will soon be distributed to the farmers. 

 

According to him, maize is just like Nerica rice in terms of yield potential, noting that such high potential of crops help boost food security and poverty reduction. 

 

He added that maize is important in many ways, one of which is that it provides grain feeds for poultry. The maize grain, he explained, is best feed for the poultry, and the high cost involved in the importation of seed has been limiting the potentials of the country's poultry sector. The popularization of maize would thus also help revitalize the poultry sector.

 

He also said that maize could also be grown as a cash crop which can improve the lives of the farming communities by reducing poverty levels and raising living standards. He added that food security and access to good quality food by the local populace can be enhanced by the production of Nerica and maize in particular. 

 

Mr. Jobe commended the Gambian farmers for their commitment to the production of Nerica but encouraged them to plant and harvest maize as that will bring in more money as a result of its high yield potential.  

 

The NARI DG pointed out that NARI is the major component of the National Agricultural System of the country and as such is mandated to provide technological solutions for the producer in order to enhance the quality of agricultural crops, livestock and other agricultural products.

 

He noted that NARI does apply client-oriented research which is human driven or participatory and also involves a lot of stakeholders. “We execute our mandate through the programme approaches and basically NARI has eleven programmes of which five are commodities based like maize, rice, millet, sorghum, and the horticultural crops,” he said.

 

He added that NARI also has a discipline-based programme like the cropping system, resource management, socio-economic programme, agriculture immune programme and the pest management programme. 

 

Mr. Jobe asserts that during the course of 2009, NARI held the line in both research and development across the various multi-disciplinary programmes.

 

He further said NARI continues to find technical solutions to various farming challenges such as enhancing the productivity of the crops that farmers grow in this country by way of bringing new varieties of each of these crops that are generally adaptable to our topographical, climatic and socio-economic condition. 

 

He finally said NARI has improved on management practice so as to create the crop environment that readily optimizes the productivity of crop varieties like maize and rice.

 

He said NARI is constantly trying to think of ways of trying to increase the productivity of farmers and through its efforts rice production in particular has increased dramatically.