By Isatou Jawara
A gathering of West African Farmer organizations was held in Senegal’s third largest city of Thies, from 25th to 26th January, 2020, where the hub of the Organic Agriculture for West African countries was launched.
The project is funded by Knowledge Center for Organic Agriculture in Africa through The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH or GIZ in short (English:German Corporation for International Cooperation GmbH), and being implemented by National Federation for Organic Agriculture-FENAB Agricola-which are farmer organizations based in Senegal.
According to Muhammed Sissoho, a farmer leader from Senegal, Organic farming is an improved and affordable way to produce good quality agricultural products in harmony with nature. That it combines traditional best production practices with modern sustainable agricultural methods.
Sissoho explained that Organic farming is defined as “a set of agricultural practices that respect ecological balance and the autonomy of farmers.
“The originality of organic farming is the use of cultural and animal husbandry practices that care about natural balances,” the farmer leader added.
Mr. Mahamadou Fayinkeh, National Coordinator of the Network of NCC-IYFF The Gambia, described it as a new way of thinking about farming, noting Organic farming relies on the intensification of biological processes while conventional farming relies on the intensification of the factors of production.
It collaborates with nature instead of trying to dominate it, said Fayinkeh. He also noted that in recent years, organic farming has been developing in Africa, through the support of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Farmers’ Organizations.
“As an innovative concept for the promotion of organic farming, knowledge centers are successfully implemented jointly with players from the regions of West Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa and Africa. “African partner organizations will implement these knowledge hubs and will be responsible for the collection, validation, preparation and dissemination of relevant knowledge on organic farming in Africa,” Fayinkeh enunciated.
The President of Network of Farmers Organizations and Agricultural Producers of West Africa [ROPPA], Mr. Muhammed Krubally, spoke of their involvement in projects of Organic farming in Africa.
“We have launched centers of biological knowledge. These clusters collect and verify relevant knowledge, which is disseminated to rural service providers and other multipliers to practitioners, value chain operators and policy makers,” he reported.
ROPPA President Krubally disclosed that the regional farmer-based organizations faced challenges of storage facilities, saying most of them are using traditional methods which have both negative and positive aspects.
He said the modern technologies farmers are looking for solutions to their problems of proper storage facilities.
