Situated four kilometers away from the coastal town of Barra in the Jokadu District, North Bank Region, Kerr Amadou Village is a community that is in dire need of water for gardening and drinking, as indicated by the District Extension Worker, and the Chairman of the Village Development Committee (VDC), Messrs. Samba Jallow and Ebrima Jallow, respectively, through telephone interviews on March 31, 2022.
Extension worker Jallow said the garden is on a lowland area and, as a result, women gardeners find it hard to access water as well as proper fencing. But despite these challenges, he noted that the gardeners have been working tirelessly in that place for over ten years now.
“As we speak, some [of these] women are frustrated as they started harvesting their crops immaturely because of the destruction of the crops by intruding animals, and inadequacy of water (supply) at the site,” lamented Jallow. He, however, acknowledges the Department of Agriculture (DoA) has provided them with farming inputs such as seeds through the Kerewan Regional Directorate, under the Resilience Organization for Transformative Stakeholders (ROOTS) project, as well as other philanthropists also supported them in the past; but still the water and fencing issues remain as constraints for this community.
Through this garden, women of the village earn their living, pay their children’s school fees and take care of other pressing social and economic challenges. And, the Higher Diploma in Agriculture holder from the Gambia College further revealed despite the challenges faced by these women gardeners, some do harvest 25 to 30 bags of onion or legumes, per annum.
“Our challenges are lack of sufficient water supply, proper fencing, bad soil topography and insufficient farming inputs,” the Extension Worker continued. He used the interview to appeal for support from government and philanthropists for more aid to eradicate this predicament in the community of Kerr Amadou village.
For his part, Chairman Jallow also lamented the Village Committee has done everything possible to remedy the situation but to no avail, saying the garden has over 100 women gardeners who entirely depend on gardening for the sustenance of their lives and livelihoods. He said the garden was established in 2012 by the villagers in order to have extra source of income and nutrition supplements. While there are six local wells in the garden, according to him, they easily run out of water.
The VDC Chair continued to say, in terms of marketing, the women gardeners always heavily rely on the weekly lumos [Weekly market] in Ndungu Kebba to sell their produce.
Furthermore, the VDC head disclosed that his village doesn’t only lack water for the garden but also for drinking too, as well as lack of electricity, a tarred road and a Senior Secondary School. “Our children trek 8 kilometers back and forth daily, to attend high school education in Kuntair village,” Chairman Jallow said.
He, therefore, reechoed the appeal earlier made by the Village Extension Worker for more immediate assistance to ameliorate the hardship the residents of Kerr Amadou are facing. The women gardeners mostly cultivate onions, pepper and cabbage for consumption and commercial purposes.
Meanwhile, when Mansa Banko Online contacted the Director General (DG) of the Department of Agriculture (DoA) Dr. Saikou E. Sanyang for his reaction, he made it clear that his Department, at the moment, is also faced with some funding challenges; consequently, it doesn’t provide support for access to water in community gardens.
Nevertheless, he indicated that if things improve, he would look into it whereby his Department would start providing access to water to the needy communities.
Dr. Sanyang, however, suggested for the community of Kerr Amadou, the Extension Worker and the VDC Chairman to approach the Regional Directorate for possible assistance in those areas of access to water and fencing.
The DoA intimated that at the moment, his Department is only implementing the projects that are already bankrolled, and there are no new projects so far.
