By Yero S. Bah
Running and maintaining three different agricultural ventures such as poultry, livestock rearing [animal husbandry] and gardening require utmost determination and a great deal of focus towards achieving both goals. These three indispensable farming circles complement another in the creation of employment, providing enough food supply and promotion of food self-sufficiency drive in a country that largely depends on imported goods and services.
Mr. Amadou Demba runs a poultry farm that has over 3000 birds; a livestock comprising 60 heads of cattle; and a garden of oranges, mangoes, cashew, and also a malian tree-garden for firewood in case of its scarcity in the future. He recalled that his father was a farmer and hence he (Demba) grew up in it; and started his own with small and large ruminants.
Amadou Demba’s Poultry Farm is located in Sifoe village, West Coast Region of The Gambia where he granted an interview to Mansa Banko Online newspaper.
After doing AAT and Diploma courses in construction at the Gambia Technical Training Institute (GTTI), Demba said he also studied livestock and crop production at Clark Atlanta University, Georgia in 2014.
“Essentially, farming is a process where one can acquire food self-sufficiency,” said the Sifoe poultry-cum-livestock farmer, as he emphasized that the Gambia should have been producing enough food for herself, but the situation “is not promising at all”. He noted that government and ordinary citizens are mostly relying on importation for even basic food and non-food items for consumption and survival.
According to Demba, most of the imported food items like frozen chicken wings and legs are not of good quality compared to the local chickens; alleging that the Western exporters always send Africans the worst of food products. “They keep the best food products for their use whilst exporting the bad (products) to Africa and the Gambia in particular,” he added.
The agriculturist further claimed that the African continent is inundated with poor European and Chinese food items or products, noting that even explains the cheaper prices of these imported chickens and other dairy products, even though their respective governments subsidize for their farmers.
Demba went on to say that, acquiring the needed capital was an uphill task for him in setting up his agricultural business, admitting that the capital to start his farming business was one of the biggest challenges he had to face in those early times of the endeavor. He informed, “I started my poultry farm gradually in 2002 to develop step-by-step.” Besides, lack of water, frequent erratic marketing challenges and storage facilities are other urgent obstacles that he faces.
As a result, he’s calling on potential donors and the Government of President Adama Barrow to come to his aid, so that he could stand the chance of expanding his farming activities and productions; disclosing “those who know the quality of our local products purchase them from us”.
Lamenting that most Gambians prefer the imported chickens over the local and quality ones, Demba charged that such mentalities should be condemned. He indicated that for several times he had been communicating with officials from the Ministry of Agriculture for the banning of the imported chicken wings and legs; as he maintained that Gambian farmers can produce enough to supply the market and consequently, do away with the bad imported chicken.
But he told this medium that government is not ready to implement their advocacy of banning imported chicken into the Gambia, with the excuses that such moves would violate the World Trade Organization (WTO) and World Bank protocols.
Demba isn’t convinced by that argument, countering that some members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and World Bank (WB) beneficiaries, among them neighboring Senegal, have banned chickens legs and wings. He said Senegal benefits more from these Western institutions than The Gambia; “Senegalese are enjoying better than us.”
He is positive that if Gambian farmers are fully supported as expected, they could feed the country without the state actually importing most of the food items. Demba further enjoined the authorities to establish protective policies that would protect every Gambian farmer against the importers. He also wants government to subsidize farming inputs, failure of which, he held, Gambian farmers would not be able to beat the competition put up by the importers.
Demba believed with the right financial and material support from government, farmers in the country “can boost production and productivity thereby creating employment” for Gambian youths and others in the country. To him, the surest way to help alleviate the sufferings of Gambian farmers, especially those in poultry production, livestock and gardening, is to place a ban on the importation of chickens and dairy products into the country. “It is the sustainable way,” he remarked with optimism.
Calling for Gambians to be self-reliant in food production, inter alia, farmer Demba underlined that it’s through hard that national development could be attained. He also emphasized the need for a proper measuring system for fruits and other horticultural produce in the Gambia.
Demba finally argued that, farmers in Senegal get better prices and much higher profits than Gambian farmers due to lack of proper weighing scales.
