Agri Ministry hosts training for extension officers

…Govt working towards digitising agriculture data – Min Mustapha

Extension officers from Regions Three, Four, and Five will, over the next three days, participate in an agricultural extension restructuring in-service training exercise at the Guyana School of Agriculture’s Mon Repos campus on the East Coast of Demerara.
The exercise was organised by the Agriculture Ministry as part of the Government’s overall vision for developing the sector.

During the opening session on Wednesday, Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha said the programme was developed to ensure that the Ministry’s extension staff were capable of dealing with a wide range of agricultural-related issues irrespective of the agency they were attached to.
He noted too that Guyana was playing the leading role as it pertains to agriculture and food security in Caricom and as such, Guyana’s agriculture sector has to be robust.
“For continued expansion and growth in the agriculture sector, we need a robust and coordinated extension and advisory services system that is accessible to all farmers and rural families. This requires extension officers to be proactive, extending their reach and services into every village, region, and eventually to every single known farmer in Guyana. It is necessary that every extension officer has at least a basic knowledge of every sub-sector to be able to provide quality extension service to our farmers. All of this is strengthening Guyana’s agri-food system and enabling us to significantly contribute to reducing the Region’s food import bill by 25% by 2025,” he explained.

Mustapha also related that the Government was taking steps to ensure extension officers were given additional resources to better execute their duties.
“In addition to training, the Ministry of Agriculture is committed to ensuring that you are provided with the necessary resources to execute your duties as we work on building “One Extension System.”As part of our future plans, the Ministry of Agriculture will be implementing a Farmers Registration System. This is currently being developed as part of the integrated Agriculture Information System (AIS) and will allow also for a dedicated extension module. We will also be distributing tablets with better specifications for extension officers to ensure that they have the necessary tools to utilise the integrated AIS. Over time, we will eventually transition to a paperless system. Demonstration plots will also be developed in Regions Two, Three, Five, Six, and 10 to promote the use of good agricultural practices and technology transfer,” the Minister said.
Over the next three days, extension officers will be exposed to a series of training programmes designed to equip them with the necessary knowledge to efficiently execute their duties.
Emphasis will be placed on strengthening capacity in areas such as crop cultivation; livestock husbandry; land preparation; fisheries/aquaculture (understanding the techniques for harvesting, marketing, and processing fish and shrimp); fruits and vegetables (harvesting techniques, on-field handling, transportation, and post-harvest management methods); digitalisation of data (critical importance of data and data quality will be underscored by introducing the concepts of monitoring and evaluation); extension methods and tools, as well as the concept of Farmer Field Schools.
Earlier this year, Minister Mustapha launched the countrywide exercise in Georgetown and said that several breakout sessions would be held as the Government moved forward with its developmental plans for the sector.
Wednesday’s exercise saw participation from officers attached to the Guyana Livestock Development Authority (GLDA); Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB); National Agriculture Research and Extension Institute (NAREI); New Guyana Marketing Corporation (New GMC); the Fisheries Department and other agencies under the Ministry’s umbrella.