The Director General (DG) at the Department of Agriculture (DoA), under the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), Dr. Saikou E. Sanyang has dismissed suggestions made by some of the gardeners, previously interviewed by this medium, that Gambia Government does not have “clear-cut approaches or programs” that could engender the national food self-sufficiency drive, among other things.
Mansa Banko Online Newspaper’s reporter had a one-on-one interview with the DG at his office in Cape Point, Bakau on March 9, 2021, in which Dr. Sanyang highlighted some of the current active projects, the phased out ones, and also possible future projects that are at the formative stages.
The interview hinged on several issues ranging from projects’ sustainability, mandates of the DoA to current projects under the Ministry of Agriculture.
Now read on:
Mansa Banko Online: We had several interviews with farmers, Agropreneurs and they have made certain claims about agriculture. And we would like to have your Ministry’s reaction to these assertions, to help shed some light on them.
But before that, could you introduce yourself and your position in this department?
Dr. Sanyang: Actually, my name is Dr. Saikou E. Sanyang and I am the Director General at the Department of Agriculture.
Mansa Banko Online: What are your department’s core mandates?
Dr. Sanyang: Firstly, the core mandate of the Department of Agriculture is mainly, to build the capacities of farmers based on best agricultural techniques regardless of individual farmers’ special areas of production; to spread out information on best agricultural practices, especially on food technologies as well as conduct researches to share findings with grassroots farmers; and work with relevant partners to develop agriculture in this country.
Mansa Banko Online: What are some of the projects your department have for Gambian farmers, especially women gardeners?
Dr. Sanyang: We have had series of projects that actually phased out, basically that were into vegetable and rice productions. And right now, we have three active projects, namely the Rice Value Chain Transformative Project (RVCTP), that is looking into soft aspects of rice production in Central River North and South and Upper River Region, and this project provide inputs, seeds and technology to farmers; the Regional Rice Value Chain, which has been launched recently and this one is into the development of farming lands in all the three regions mentioned above; as well as the Resilience of Organisations for Transformative Smallholder Agriculture Project (ROOTS) which was launched in five regions of Central River Region, North and South, Upper River Region, Lower River Region, West Coast Region few weeks ago. And this latter project looks into vegetable production and improvement of rice productions at field level.
We are developing other new projects but they [are] yet to be finalized, but are in the making as we [are] speaking, and the above projects are the three active projects we have at this point in time.
Mansa Banko Online: By looking at the rice value chain projects that you have mentioned, why [targeting] only those regions when we have about seven regions in this country?
Dr. Sanyang: These regions are earmarked for rice productions. The potentials are there in terms of fresh water and fertile land and they have been providing rice for years in this country. And we feel that yet still, we can look into those regions to see how best we could improve rice production and productivity for farmers. Until recently, we have overlapped to URR and we have the Agricultural Value Project which is targeting vegetable production, poultry, small ruminant and rice production as well.
Mansa Banko Online: Who are the targeted beneficiaries of these projects in these regions, women, or youth?
Dr. Sanyang: Looking at the components of these projects is basically targeting the youth and women as well as the physically-challenged, especially that of the ROOTS project are targeting eighty percent of the women, 25 percent of the youth, whilst ten percent (10%) goes for the physically challenged. So basically, the beneficiaries are women and youth as they play a key role in rice production.
Mansa Banko Online: Since your current projects are concentrated on some regions and not all, what do you have for the rest of the other regions, namely North Bank and West Coast, for instance?
Dr. Sanyang: Ok, for North Bank, the region also has the potentials for vegetables production. So, the ROOTS project is concentrated in North Bank as they have some wetlands around that can support vegetable farming, whilst for West Coast and LRR, [they] are also known for vegetables production. But for LRR, it’s experiencing some salt intrusion in certain areas as we speak. But these are three areas the ROOTS project is targeting as far as vegetables production is concerned.
Mansa Banko Online: The Gambian farmers have highlighted numerous challenges ranging from lack of water, proper fencing to lack of readily available markets for them. What does the Ministry have in stored for these farmers in addressing some of these challenges, particularly access to water, for instance?
Dr. Sanyang: Yes, water is a challenge and a constraint as far as the department is concerned because we made some assessments as we dispatched our officers from the Horticulture Unit to see these vegetables gardens to assess the water challenges.
But in future projects, we are trying to make sure these projects that are coming to see how best to improve on this water challenges because the ROOTS project will rehabilitate over 40 gardens across the country with provision of water to women gardeners; create another thirty (30) new gardens for a start. Where the previous projects could not accomplish, the current projects will address those areas. Future projects like the ROOTS will complement the previous projects by improving the water conditions in the gardens in the country.
Mansa Banko: Online What are some of the concrete steps that the ministry wants to take to address these water issues in Gambian gardens? Is it a mere plan in the pipeline or are there concrete steps taken already?
Dr. Sanyang: No. They are not mere plans in the pipeline. It is already in the project document and once the implementation of this project starts, we will make assessment of the gardens that need immediate interventions and we will provide them with water supply. It is already in the project documents.
Mansa Bank Online: How about fencing and marketing too?
Dr. Sanyang: The rehabilitation is inclusive. For marketing, my personal view is that farmers don’t make marketing plans to see what the market needs before venturing into production. But actually, marketing is a challenge even beyond the Gambia too, but with proper market research one can utilize the market available in the country.
Mansa Banko Online: How about weighing produce because Gambian farmers believe that there should be that formal weighing system in place?
Dr. Sanyang: Yes. In fact, that has been a message put to farmers for them to start weighing their produce or products. But, actually, there is a challenge and a concern to the Department of Agriculture, and several gardens have been given weighing scales to measure their produce. There was a weigh and measures unit and that should implement their duties to carry out these issues in the country; but at our level, [it] is to teach farmers as a mandate which we are actually doing.
Right now, I have talked to some vegetables growers in North Bank Region to start weighing their produce just for them to have that common understanding, and at the end of the day, they will adapt to these systems.
Mansa Banko Online: Most farmers believe that the Gambia, through the Ministry of Agriculture, does not have policies that support food self-sufficiency. What is your response to them?
Dr. Sanyang: We have policies. All these projects that have emerged is as a result of tese policies that we have formulated. We have the National Development Plan (NDP) which clearly captured agriculture as it aims to modernize the sector through commercialization. And we also have the Gambia National Investment Program (GNIP) which touches on issues relating to investment as far as agriculture is concerned as well as the invitation of the private sector to embrace agriculture.
We have succeeded in getting one of the private sector investors called the Maruo Farms –[an indigenous and fully-integrated rice production company in The Gambia] –who is producing, processing and marketing [rice] as well as Gambia Horticultural Enterprises (GHE), [which] is collaborating with the Ministry of Agriculture in terms of production, processing and even possible exportation. The Ministry of Agriculture has created the conducive policies and programs for the private sector to venture into farming as well as exporting [their] produce to other countries…
And the policies are not just on the paper, otherwise the Maruo Farms won’t have come to invest in rice production, processing and marketing in the Gambia. So, we have the policies [in place] and better conditions for private sector to invest into agriculture.
The ministry is even trying to build a public-private-partnership (PPP) on mechanized tractors, where we have already given out ten (10) tractors to people in CRR South to ease the accessibility to plough services, because we realized this has been a huge challenge for farmers. But with the current government, we‘ve been able to purchase at least fifty (50) tractors.
Mansa Banko Online: How are these tractors used by farmers, example a farmer who can’t afford their three daily meals, for instance?
Dr. Sanyang: Yes, you know tractors are expensive and we have injected a lot of money into these tractors. We want sustainability not like previously, where maintenance wasn’t considered. We would like to bring back the olden days farming practices.
Mansa Banko Online: What does the Ministry and your department have for farmers in terms of storage, because farmers usually lose a lot of produce without storages?
Dr. Sanyang: That is a concern to the ministry and the Department of Agriculture; to see how best to help provide storage facilities. They are capital intensive. For farmers in the Gambia, especially vegetable growers, are many and we must help them with standard storage facilities but they are expensive, in building such facilities across the regions and the ROOTS is looking at that profoundly, to preserve the perishable produce of farmers.
Mansa Banko Online: From 1965 to date, the Gambia through the Ministry of Agriculture, has had several projects and they come and go but sustainability is always a problem anytime they phased out. What is put in place for future projects for sustainability, if any?
Dr. Sanyang: You are talking of sustainability which is quite important and you mentioned that in previous years, projects do come and go but there are no sustainability mechanisms for such projects in the past. Actually, maybe the projects’ beneficiaries weren’t involved in the implementation of those projects previously, right from the onset or projects were allocated wrongly to communities. And this is why we are now conscious of how we allocate projects to beneficiaries because we want sustainability and ownership of these projects by the communities themselves.
We only rollout projects based on need assessment, for instance if a certain community needs a garden that is the time we give out such a project to that particular community, otherwise we don’t just allocate projects randomly like that anymore. It has to be on a need basis and along the way, we will tell communities that the onus of the sustainability of the project will be on the community themselves should the project phased out.
At the initial stage, the project will take care of all the needed funding but after it elapses, the sustainability becomes the duty of the beneficiary-community. The community must put some sustainability mechanisms like charging members and we help them develop these sustainability ideas too through our extension units.
Mansa Banko Online: How do you help these communities in crafting sustainability plans should the project phased out?
Dr. Sanyang: Yes, we do tell them because we are trying to instill some saving concepts into farmers. And if you go to Foni Brefet village, they are on production; Ndimbu village in URR and Manduar village the same thing. They have been able to save millions of dalasi today, because we are trying to inculcate that idea of saving because machines could easily get a breakdown and they need to maintenance them for themselves, to continue their productions even if the project phases out. So, the ownership here is very important.
We are also trying to be inclusive by involving all the stakeholders like farmers in our project designing processes. This is why in project scoping, we invite farmers’ inputs so that their views are also captured in any future projects for sustainability sake. We also give farmers free seeds but we always encourage them to charge each other…small tokens to enable the sustainability drive in this whole issue.
Mansa Banko Online: Any idea of how many gardens do we have in this country, for instance?
Dr. Sanyang: Yes, we have those records. If you go to the Horticulture Unit, we have about over 444 active gardens across the country. We have these records at the ministry and they are always available to the public.
Mansa Banko Online: What is the relationship between your Ministry of Agriculture and your development stakeholders like YEP, GIZ and ITC, for instance?
Dr. Sanyang: The relationship is very cordial and mutual. In fact, there was a project called the FASDEP which actually phased out. It was closely implemented with NEDI and Youth Empowerment Project (YEP) and they in fact, supply farming implements to farmers especially migrant returnees. So, there is no problem as far as collaboration is concerned; and we have collaborated to train several youth and women on various skills.
Mansa Banko Online: Your final words on this interview please?
Dr. Sanyang: All of us should embrace agriculture regardless of our capacities and statuses- even the civil servants. When it comes to poverty reduction, it is faster in poverty eradication. When you farm, you can eat healthy and sell excess produce and earn extra cash too.
