By Mamadou Edrisa Njie
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Founder of the Gambian-owned agribusiness in Sapu, Central River Region South (CRR/S), Mr. Musa Darboe, has disclosed that as part of Maruo Farms’ six-year plan, they have the capacity to employ thirty thousand (30,000) young Gambians through agricultural mechanization to reduce rice importation.
It’s worth mentioning that, Maruo Farms-The Gambia produces and packages rice made in The Gambia.
Darboe, who was speaking in an exclusive interview with Mansa Banko Online in Brikamaba, Central River Region South (CRR/S) of The Gambia, promised that the youth employed by his farms would not engage in hard labour, but instead, simple farming techniques with less labour but earning a decent living.
“If we want to have our youth in agriculture, it has to be low labour intensity”, he asserted, adding that for the government to address unemployment among the youngsters, it needs to engage the private sector to create more jobs.
The Gambia Labour Force Survey (GLFS 2018) Analytical Report revealed that there were 377, 326 youth who were actively participating in the labour force, of which 54.4 percent were males and 45.6 percent females.
By place of residence, 51.4 percent of the actively engaged youth were from the urban areas, and 48.6 percent from the rural areas. The Survey found that Brikama, in West Coast Region, had the highest proportion of the economically active youth-38.3 percent, followed by Kanifing-19.1 percent, and Basse-13.6 percent.
The Maruo Farms Chief Executive emphasized that when Gambia mechanizes agriculture, “it [agriculture] will be more profitable and sustainable”. He is optimistic that with agricultural mechanization in the country, it would be possible to attract the youth folk to engage in agricultural activities.
CEO Darboe continued :“It only through agricultural mechanization that we will be able to bring our youth into agriculture.
“At Maruo Farms, all the work we’re doing around the clock is how to create decent jobs for youth and women, as well as reduce the importation of rice in this country.
“Gambians also need to buy and eat locally grown rice because the rice we’re producing at Maruo Farms is high quality- very nutritious”.
Darboe also opined that bringing young farmers together and having them engaged in agricultural commercialization is the ‘best solution’ in addressing unemployment.
Quizzed on how his Farms would be able to get more youth ventured into agriculture and eventually create the 30,000 jobs they are eyeing, the Maruo Farms boss disclosed to this pro-agriculture Online newspaper that, his programmes focus on agricultural mechanization and has a ‘very big’ package- buying products at a good price, providing high yield rice varieties for young farmers and using latest farming technology.
He justified that having latest farming equipment is the solutions, but as Darboe noted, The Gambia lacks modern farming equipment and also experts to fully operate some of these equipment.
Maintaining that for the country to have a mechanized agriculture, there is need for experts. He, however, added that in the Gambia, “we have very limited experts in land development”. He noticed that most of the experts in land development are coming from foreign countries.
Dilating on Public-Private Partnership (3Ps)-{a cooperative arrangement between two or more public and private sectors}-at Maruo Farms, Darboe said that’s a programme for the youth of this country, but through partnership with the government of The Gambia. He pointed out that the government’s role would be to support the private sector in putting good policies that protect the local industry.
In Gambia, farming activities, both on upland and lowland, involve a high labour intensive. As a result, many of our youth don’t want to venture into farming. But Darboe held that Maruo Farms have the solution by introducing the latest agricultural farming system whereby, the labour involved would be very low.
He said agriculture plays a crucial role in the life of an economy, describing it as the backbone of their economic system. He stressed the need to entice the youth to work in the agricultural sector of this country.
CEO Darboe vouched that in addition to providing food and raw materials, agriculture also provides employment opportunities to a very large percentage of the population.
Ministry of Agriculture 2020 budget allocation:
On Wednesday, 11th December, 2019, the National Assembly Members of The Gambia, unanimously agreed and authorized an approval of D488, 263, 515 billion for the Ministry of Agriculture from the consolidated revenue fund for the period of 1st January, 2020 to 31st December, 2020.
