By: Kebba AF Touray
The Gambia Inclusive Resilience Agricultural Value Chain Development Project (GIRAV), under the Central Projects Coordinating Unit of the Ministry of Agriculture, yesterday handed over 100 tablets to the Department of Agriculture.
The items, which are meant for use by Agric-extension workers across the country, will help extension work for increased agricultural production and productivity, and strengthen the work of the extension workers by graduating them from the usual paper data collection mode to a digitalised system of data collection.
Abdoulie Touray, Project Coordinator at GIRAV, said the provision of the donated tablets to the extension workers is part of the efforts of the project to support the policies of the Government and also actualise the extension policy.
The policy, he said, has a component on E- Extension, to digitalise the messages of extension workers to farmers, which the project deems as significant to support the policy.
“The tablets are not for luxury, but to empower extension workers in ensuring accurate and reliable filed data collection, by supporting and enhancing the work of the extension officers at the field level,” he said.
Saikou Sanyang, Director General at the Department of Agriculture, explained that this is the first time that they are going into E-Extension, and said the gesture is integral in their strife to graduate from paper to digitalized system of data collection.
“These tablets will help us collect and keep data, and will be used to do other agricultural activities as well, to beef up the extension system. Let us be proactive, action oriented and resource minded. This will ensure that we succeed in our team work, so as to compliment the efforts of Government,” he said. Sanyang added that this will ensure sustainability of the project, once it phases out, adding that the farmers and the department will continue to stay, to deliver in meeting up the expectations of the farmers in agriculture.
