By Sulayman Waan
An executive member of the Banjulinding Women’s Horticultural Garden Committee, Madam Yama Badjie has bemoaned the numerous constraints the garden is confronted with, thus affecting effective production of vegetables and legumes. She said the fence of their garden, which was built quite a longtime ago, is now severely destroyed. “In fact, I cannot remember when it was made. It is too bad now,” she stressed.
The horticulturist made the lamentation during a recent “on site” exclusive interview with Mansa Banko Online Newspaper. She noted that animals would often intrude into their garden at night when everyone is at home and consume their vegetables. So, when they come back to work in the morning and see where the livestock have passed through, they would always repair. “But they would also penetrate another part of the fence again,” the Banjulinding gardener explained.
Speaking on water constraints, Madam Badjie disclosed the garden lacks adequate water supply for their entire seedling beds. According to her, they have three boreholes but only one is functioning; the other two had engine failure and they lacked the financial capacity to repair them.
Furthermore, she said, poor marketing system affects all vegetable and legumes gardeners across the country, reassuring that Gambian women particularly those at Banjulinding Horticultural garden, are willing to engage in immense horticultural practice; “but the market is very poor”.
Noting nowadays, vegetable gardens are many in the country, Badjie decries that if all the vegetables get ripe at the same time, “we would not sell our products at better prices”. She called on the government of President Adama Barrow to come to their aid and ensure the challenges affecting their wellbeing are addressed.
The old woman who spent over 20 years working in that horticultural site, averred that insufficient water supply, poor fence and poor marketing system are their major constraints and they want government to put that into consideration.
“Many women want to work in the garden but they are not coming now because we earn very little. But if government improved the condition of gardeners, many including jobless graduates, would join us here (in the garden),” she asserted.
Badjie maintained that Gambian women want to work harder in the horticultural area to contribute in nation building, but constraints abound. She highlighted the Banjulinding Women gardeners’ contributions towards the development of the country, saying they had been helping disaster victims through the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA).
Badjie further recalled that when the former Under-20 Football team was participating in the then Junior World Cup tournament in Peru, the women gardeners of Banjulinding contributed a sum of money to support the then Gambia Football Association (GFA) now called Gambia Football Federation (GFF).
