By Momodou Jarju
Dressed in his traditional kaftan, Mr. Mandou P. Fofana relaxed on the settee at his home in Tallinding. It was on a Friday, after the Jum’ah prayers, and he was about to leave on a trip to their jointly-owned rice farm at Wellingara village in Central River Region (CRR) – a region where rice cultivation is the highest in the country.
Mr. Fofana, an Information Technology (IT) Officer at the National Association of Cooperative Credit Unions of The Gambia (NACCUG) and his cousin brother, Mr. Modou Lamin Suwareh, co-founded Mira Farms Limited; and he is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the farms.
Fofana studied IT Administration and Management at Lasting Solutions Institute of Technology.
Established about seven (7) months ago, June 2019 to be precise, Mira Farms dreams to be the biggest commercial rice farm in the country. They are also considering the prospect of venturing into horticulture.
The Journey
Fofana aged 27 years, and his cousin brother, have been into other businesses before venturing into rice production and processing, but things didn’t work out well for them, then.
He explained: “We started Gbytes Storage Solutions which was a startup, and focused on bringing in computer storage solution to businesses in The Gambia. We started it for some months and the business collapsed.” Gbytes, he recalled, was in the importation of USB storage devices, like flash drives and hard drives for onward sales and distribution.
Thereafter, the duo started importing Thermal Receipt Rolls (used for receipt printing) but it wasn’t a pleasant business experience. As he lamented, they imported the rolls for a particular company in the country, but that company never bought the rolls. Consequently, they lost all the money expended on those rolls.
Refusing to call it a day, Messrs. Fofana and Suwareh intended to venture into e-commerce with a Cameroonian businessman. But, as fate would have it, the duo’s intent did not materialize.
Reason: The Cameroonian in question had an emergency and suddenly left The Gambia for his native country, Cameroon, and he has never returned to The Gambia, due to the Anglophone Crisis (French: Crise anglophone), also known as the Ambazonia War, or the Cameroonian Civil War.
What’s next for the two? Fofana recalled: “Then we were having little capital. We have to do something again. That’s the time we think about agribusiness and rice wasn’t the first thing we wanted to do. We wanted to do something that is less capital because {for} rice, the investment is too much. So, we were thinking about horticulture.”
He said they then thought of a long-term investment that could have impacts on the lives of ordinary Gambians. And finally, they settled for rice production. That was how Mira came about, as the Mira Farms co-founder explained.
A Conviction to Succeed
Fofana indicated that they had a “strong motive” and “definite desire” to make money which kept them going, despite several futile attempts.
“The desire is to get money and how we do that, well, we don’t care,” the Farms CEO argued.
Asked whether becoming a farmer has ever been his dream in life, the enthusiastic agripreneur responded in the affirmative.
At school, he refreshed, agriculture was his favorite subject, and he’s still in contact with his Junior School agriculture teacher, Mr. Edrisa Sey.
Getting a land wasn’t easy, Fofana noted, pointing out that it’s a communal land and the community needed to agree before they could have it. This, somewhat, wasted their time, negotiating for almost nine months with the village Alkalo and community.
“The reason we chose that place is because of the availability of fresh water in the area, where we should be able to do all year round rice farming; and also the community is an agriculture-based community. They {villagers} have been farming from the onset. Their forefathers were farmers.
“So, that’s why we choose the community and we eventually struck a deal with them around September. And as I am talking now, the land is being prepared. We are trying to dig a canal that is going to draw water from the river to the main fields,” he recounted.
Mira Farms would use the land for five years and pay the community 25,000.00, annually; and the initial agreement could be extended beyond five years. The farmland is 7.6 hectares, revealed CEO Fofana.
Changing the Narrative
To engage in farming, especially at his age, is rare in the country. There had been several complaints, recently, from concerned Gambians about the dominant farmers in the country being old people, while may youth from the rural areas continue to migrant to the urban areas for better living conditions. Some of the youth would embark on the perilous “back way” journey, hoping to reach Europe on greener pastures.
Few lucky ones do make it to the shores of Europe, but many of them sometimes, end up dying at sea after shipwreck or boat accident. However, Mira Farms wants to change that narrative.
Fofana got his inspiration from Mr. Rotimi Williams, 35-year-old former Nigerian journalist and now a rice farmer owning the second largest commercial rice farm (Kereksuk Rice Farm) in Nigeria by land size. He disclosed that he reached out to Mr. Williams who offered him some technical advice, and mental support “because there were times when I say, I want to give up (he chuckled). So, he was just pushing me… ‘continue this is a great venture’.
“There is this guy also in Senegal called Baba Diallo, a prominent rice farmer around the Thiagar area. My partner {Mr. Suwareh} went for a study tour in Senegal to check how he was doing things”.
Fofana acknowledged that Baba’s story was inspiring because as of 2017, he had made a revenue turnover of two million dollars.
In terms of labour, the owners of Mira Farms intend to hire women Kafoos (groups) within the area, to do the weeding, transplanting and harvesting. Fofana further averred that they want to leverage on that, because there are specialized women kafoos within that community who are well-experienced in some of the activities he had earlier mentioned.
Presently, the Mira Farms owners have two permanent staff- a Supervisor and an Assistant, both residents of Wellingara village.
Mira’s vision is in two folds. First, they want to be the most viable commercial rice farming in the country, and along the way, inspire a local entrepreneurship, particularly among the youth folk, to see farming as a business enterprise, as per his version.
“That is why our success is important because when we are successful, we want youth to replicate our success in venturing into farming. Because if you look at The Gambia, truly, is sad; when you see a lot of young people dying in the seas trying to reach Europe,” he remarked.
But he held that, the youth are not to be blamed because the country is giving them so little to stay.
Nevertheless, Fofana said the youth could have looked deeper and engaged in farming, for instance. He lamented that the average farmers in the country are mostly above 50 years, which, he believed, couldn’t attract youth.
He, therefore, clamoured for more investment in the sector so as to entice the youth of this country. He added that the biggest problem most farmers are facing in this country is access to financing.
The CEO again: “I think if that gap is bridged and farmers can have easy access to finance, especially the youth, we would not be talking about unemployment because we are bestowed and blessed with all the natural ecologies that you can think about, to do farming considering the land, the fresh water and the technical expertise.”
He posited that even if Gambia can’t stop the importation of something like potatoes, onions, but they could, at least, contribute a large amount to the local market.
The Mira Farms chief executive singled out capital as the main challenge they are grappling with, saying most of the work being done at the farm is financed by them. He also said their friends and family have been helping in terms of finance.
Political Will
He opined that there is a political will, justifying that he has been going through the national rice development plan which details government’s plans to ensure The Gambia attains rice self-sufficiency before 2024.
Notwithstanding, he said the government “is missing it” on the allocation of some projects coming into the country. He claimed that most of the projects are community-focused which alone can’t ensure the country’s food sufficiency agenda.
The Information Technologist-cum-agripreneur called on the government to empower enterprises and private companies that have shown interest in agriculture because they need financial and technical help.
He also posited that the government should actually explore ways of bringing projects that would be targeting youth entrepreneurs who are involved in farming.
“In that way, I can say we would be on right track to achieving rice-sufficiency and food-sufficiency in The Gambia,” he intimated.
Meanwhile, Mira Farms is among the 10 best startup businesses competing for a prize of one million dalasi (D1,000,000. 00), and Fofana is hoping Mira Farms would win, so that they could expand the establishment.
He revealed that they are currently negotiating with the Village Development Committee (VDC) of Kudan in CRR, to have a land there too, for rice cultivation.
“I think of all the businesses there, we need it more,” he remarked, followed by laugher before he quickly underlined, “No disrespect.”
