Joe,

If any farmer is owed a single Butut due to credit buying beyond April/May of 2000 or 2001 from those respective cropping seasons, I am not aware of that. I fully remember last year when the SOS for Finance, Famare Jatta told the NA that all that was owed to farmers through credit buying had all been paid. This was sometime in June/July last year. As for this year, the SOS for Agriculture, Hassan Sallah, told a reporter of The Point newspaper that credit buying as at now:

"stands at D45 million which will be reduced next week by the pumping of an additional D23 million. Plans are afoot to clear all debts by the end of April 2002". He said this this week. As April is just round the corner, I hope the same journalist would go around again to find out from farmers, come the beginning of May, whether any farmers were still owed money by then. I hope the reporter would also interview the Agric SOS again about the same.

As an immediate response to some of the questions that you've asked, I will reproduce a part of President Jammeh's speech during the inaugration of the 2002 legislative session of the National Assembly concerning domestic crop production to give us an idea of groundnut production last year and this year. I shall try to provide some real stats to answer the rest of the questions that you've asked, should they exist or should I have them.

Have a good day, Gassa.

 Extract for Jammeh's National inaugural speech 2002.

"For the year just ended, production of food crops in general improved significantly due to the favourable climatic and weather conditions. Overall, coarse grains increased from 119,330 metric tons in 1999/2000 to 132,000 metric tons in 2000/2001. Sorghum recorded the highest increase of over 30% compared to last year.

Groundnut production realized a dramatic turn around from 122,950 metric tons in 1999/2000 cropping season to 129,100 metric tons in 2000/2001. Production in 2001/2002 also increased over the previous year, recording about 131,000 metric tons.

Horticultural production registered marked improvement. The increased production came from the small-scale community garden schemes, which produce mainly for the local market. The increased production by the commercial growers is attributable to our hardworking women who produce for the domestic market, including hotels, restaurants, and for export to the winter markets in Western Europe."