By:Bakary Touray Jr
The National Assembly Member (NAM) for Janjanbureh Constituency, Hon. Momodou Ceesay, has stressed to his colleagues that the country couldn’t make progress in development, if it relies on imported food.
Speaking on Monday during lawmakers ongoing debate on Finance Minister Mambury Njie’s Budget speech delivered at the Legislative House, Hon. Ceesay argued that the budget allocation to the agricultural sector “is small”, and added if that’s the routine, then he doubts if food-self-sufficiency could be attained in this country.
The lawmaker opined the National Agriculture Research Institute (NARI) still lacks a testing machine to test soils for the farmers, which he described as “a sad scenario”, claiming they have to take the soil to foreign countries to carry out such tests. He charged this needs urgent consideration.
“If we cannot feed ourselves, we cannot make progress in development,” the NAM told his colleagues. He maintained that the 2021 budget should have given more concentration on agricultural growth, cautioning that if the current trend is not addressed, the sector cannot make headway. He also said that budget concentration on agriculture sector would help the country to feed itself in the post-Covid era.
The legislator also informed the Finance Minister that for the first time in the history of the Gambia, the National Seed Secretariat had been able to procure seeds for the farmers, through the D100 million approved by the Legislature in the Supplementary Appropriation Bill.
Hon. Ceesay underlined, “This should have been captured in the speech; but going through the speech, this has not been articulated in the speech.” He said farmers faced lot of problems in trying to get fertilizer, noting that [of] the 1,100 metric tons procured by the Gambia Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI), 20,000 bags were given to the National Agricultural Land and Water Management Development Project (Nema). But he alleged that what was left was not accessible by the farmers. He further clarified that, out of 284,354 animals that were counted, 233,834 were vaccinated and “not 135,000” stated by the Minister Njie in his speech.
The Janjanbureh NAM called on the Gambia Government to provide a Skills Center in his constituency, justifying that despite the huge nature of the Central River Region, it still lacks Skills Center. The centres, he believes, would help the youth in his region to learn and acquire skills, which would enable them to be engaged in self-employed avenues in order earn their livelihood.
