THE Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) on Monday handed over four desktop computers to the New Guyana Marketing Corporation (NGMC). According to a release, this donation was given to NGMC to help them collect and analyse production data of non-traditional agricultural crops in a better and timely manner.
The donation is part of the FAO/TCP project titled, “Support for the Enhancement of the National Agricultural Market Information System in Guyana.”
Agriculture Minister, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy in brief remarks reiterated the importance of such a programme.
He noted that the programme will pave the way for the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) 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 forecasts for local production among others,” he said.

OTHER PROGRAMMES
Apart from the purchase of the five computers the US$121,000 project also saw the production of a Data Collection strategy for Non-traditional agricultural crops being finalised, the development of a training curriculum as well as training programmes for extension officers, crop reporters and price collectors.
According to Dr. Ramsammy, the project will ensure that Guyana significantly contributes to the promotion of regional food security and also alleviate one of the key binding constraints of the Jagdeo Initiative, which is the lack of market information.
FAO’s Country Representative to Guyana Ms. Khadija Musa, who also holds the portfolio of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative, spoke of the importance in ensuring that 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 capitalise on the high prices and avoid gluts on the market.