Georgetown : The New Guyana Marketing Corporation (NGMC) to better collect and analyse production data of non-traditional agriculture crops in a timely manner received a significant boost as the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) handed over four desktop computers to the entity.
The donation is part of the FAO/TCP project titled, “Support for the Enhancement of the National Agricultural Market Information System in Guyana”.
Agriculture Ministry Dr. Leslie Ramsammy in delivering brief remarks reiterated the importance of such a program noting that it will pave the way for the Ministry of Agriculture to have a more functional Market information system.
“This will ensure that that we readily have available appropriate price and volume data at local markets, market requirements and price data for export as well as crop forecast for local production among other,” he said.
Apart from the purchase of the five computers the US$121,000 project also saw the production Data Collection strategy for Non-traditional agriculture crops being finalized, the development of a training curriculum as well as training programs for extension officers, crop reporters and price collectors.
According to Dr. Ramsammy, the project will ensure that Guyana significantly contribute to the promotion of regional food security and contribute to alleviating one of the key binding constraints of the Jagdeo Initiative which is the lack of market information.
Food and Agriculture Organization’s Country Representative to Guyana Ms. Khadija Musa who also holds the portfolio as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative spoke of the importance in ensuring farmers readily access information as to what, when and how much of a particular crop to plant.
This, she says, is necessary so as to better capitalize on the high prices and avoid gluts on the market.
“”The work done thus far, by the Ministry of Agriculture is essential in ensuring farmers having access to data…however, to further expand the current market information system to ensure.
You must be logged in to post a comment.