By Mamadou Edrisa Njie
A Gambian rice farmer has said the country faces a food security problem due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Since the outbreak of the virus, many families are having less and less food to eat, Musa Darboe, chief executive officer of Maruo Farms, told Mansa Banko Online in an interview.
The outbreak of the coronavirus should be an eye opener for our governments in Africa, he said.
On Sunday, The Gambia recorded its fourth case of the coronavirus, which began in China’s city of Wuhan in mid-December 2019. One person, a Bangladeshi Imam who was on preaching mission to Banjul, died from the virus last week.
Darboe said it is time for African governments to invest meaningfully by supporting smallholder farmers to boost production and to put more food on the table.
“The only solution for our country (The Gambia) is to produce more food, be able to feed herself,” he said at his Jahally and Pacharr rice fields, 280 kilometers from the capital, Banjul.
Smallholder farmers in the West African country lack basic facilities for storage to reduce post-harvest losses. Darboe said meaningful and sustained investment in the agriculture sector will address this problem.
He also said there was a need to introduce high yield crops and crops that are adaptive to an increasingly changing climate. “In this way, we will be able to address any future, economically-crippling virus outbreak,” he said.
Maruo Farms specialises in the production of rice varieties that have a shorter maturity period and are of high yield. Darboe said the farms are expected to produce 13 tonnes of rice per hectare. Twenty bags of rice make a tonne.
Haruna Gassama, president of the rice farmers cooperative society, said it is time for the Gambia government to increase its agriculture budget to meet national food production requirements.
“This is the time for the Gambian government to provide more quality seeds, fertilizer and other farming machineries to rice growers,” Gassama said.
On March 23, the ministry of trade revised food prices to pre-coronavirus arrival in The Gambia amid price hikes, panic buying and fears of food shortage. The country has food stock enough for only two months, according to the authorities.
More than half of the rice, a staple, consumed in The Gambia is imported from southeast Asian countries. The country also depends on Japan and China for food aid – mainly rice.
