Dampha wrote:

"Gassama, just thought that in the interest of FAIR DISCLOSURE people should be aware of what the Agriculture Minister was reacting to. The same newspaper you culled that article from (by the way, dated March 28) also carried the following piece. Remember that your government was boasting that there would be NO credit buying. Now, under pressure from the press they are admitting that there is indeed millions of dalasis of credit buying. Only God knows when the buyers will make good on the promissory notes."

Dampha,

The article I forwarded is the SOS for agriculture's reaction to an earlier article in The Point newspaper concerning credit buying whereas the one that you've forwarded is The Point's editorial defending that earlier article. Whatever the case, a few things are important here and these are:

1. Our farmers, despite all that has been writen about their frustrations regarding credit buying, this year sold to government 70,000 tonnes of groundnuts against last year's 43,000 tonnes, an increase of 62.8 %. This indicates that either government's support for the agric sector is beginning to yield dividents or their commitment to market our farmers' groundnuts is paying dividents. In any case and in any which way you slice it, government can only be commended for their efforts.

2. The river transport sector, long neglected, is being revived with the rehabilitation of dozens of river badges. This translates to more jobs and less pressure on our roads.

3. Gambia's groundnut oil sector is also being revived. This means that soon we would be cooking with our own oil, which translates to less import of cooking oils and less pressure for foreign exchange.

4. Premier Agric's Buniadu mill is fully operational as well as the Kaur Mill. It could be recalled that I once informed the list that Premier Agric exports Gambian groundnut oil to the UK, where it is in high demand. Again, this means more jobs and more exports.

5. The failure of neighbouring Senegal to market more than 30 % of its farmers' groundnuts goes to show that the problem of marketing our farmers' groundnuts is not unique to The Gambia. In our case we are at least marketing almost 100 % of our farmers' groundnuts.

6. Finally it seems that there are greater things to come as long as the rains are favourable.