By Mamadou Edrisa Njie
Ms. Fatima Gaye, an alumna of the Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Information and Technology (ELIT 2018) National Youth Summer Camp, has called on the youthful farmers to adapt to the use of organic products in their farms and graduate from chemical usage.
ELIT, is an annual summer camp organised by the Global Youth Innovation Network Gambia Chapter (GYIN Gambia Chapter). GYIN Gambia chapter is a national youth network operating across the length and breadth of The Gambia with special focus on rural developments.
Gaye, who is also an agriculturist and a graduate of the Gambia Songhai Initiative-SGI (in Chamen, North Bank Region) told Mansa Banko Online that the usage of chemical products on plants usually cause stomach disorder for consumers.
For a recollection, Ms. Gaye upon her completion of the GYIN’s ELIT 2018 summer camping, ventured into seedling plantation with the use of organic products and biological solution for sale.
She explained: “I do grafting and budding of trees. I select the seeds and prepare my own biological solution which is the local solution that has no added chemical.”
As the young agripreneur informed this online media outlet that focuses on agricultural reporting, she makes her “own super soil” and prepare the compost, all by herself.
Her words: “I don’t add any chemical product in the soil preparation. All my products are made of organic.”
Currently working at the Njawara Agricultural Training Centre, in the North Bank Region (NBR), Gaye is planning to initiate processing Moringa into soap.
As an agriculturist, it’s her settled view that “nothing should be above your eyes”.
Ms. Gaye, who hailed from a peasant family background, brushed aside the widely held belief or notion that ‘agriculture is a profession for school drop-outs’.
She maintained that agriculture is a noble profession where people could earn a decent living. A case in point, Gaye cited is her own family background wherein agriculture happens to be their source of living.
She rounded off her media chat with Mansa Banko Online, by encouraging the young people to engage in agricultural activities in order to contribute in the crusade against food and nutrition insecurity in the country.
