The Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) has recognized the efforts of the National Agricultural Land and Water Management Development Project (Nema) in providing financial support to establish thirty-five (35) youth enterprises in rural Gambia, through the Global Youth Innovation Network (GYIN) Gambia Chapter’s Rural Youth Awards.
Through its Facebook page, the MoA acknowledged: “In partnership with GYIN Gambia, Nema has provided support to establish thirty-five (35) youth owned and managed enterprises through GYIN Rural Youth Awards.”
The Ministry of Agriculture publishes this information on its social media page when the IFAD Supervision Mission to the Gambia visited the Agricultural Minister, Madam Amie Fabureh on 6th July, 2019 at her office in Banjul.
Nema is an IFAD-funded project to the tune of U$34M project, with 28 million as grant, while 7.4 million is loaned, with government’s contribution of D2.4 million.
The project, which started in 2013, has been successfully implemented and is phasing out late December this year.
The project’s areas of intervention range from land development for rice and horticultural production, climate change adaptation, whilst increasing income through improved Agricultural productivity based on sustainable land and water management practices.
Nema Project has been a co-financier of GYIN Gambia activities over the years to improve the economic livelihood of young women and men in the rural Gambia. These include the first and second editions of the Rural Youth Awards 2017/18, and the three editions of the Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Information and Technology (ELIT) National Youth Summer Camp.
According to the MoA, Nema Project has implemented over four-hundred and forty-seven and five (447.5) hectares of tidal irrigation schemes, and of which more than 360ha had been handed over to farmers to start production in Central River Region North and South (CRR North and South).
Twelve-thousand-seven-hundred and twenty-four (12,724) hectares of lowland has also been developed and equipped with cause ways, bridges, dikes and spill ways and made available to more than 25,000 farmers which is already under cultivation in Lower River Region (LRR), North Bank Region (NBR), West Coast Region (WCR), Central River Region South (CRR South) and Central River Region North (CRR North), according to the information.
Four thousand six hundred and thirty (4,630) hectare of upland conservation area had been reclaimed for upland cropping, benefitting 4630 households in Upper River Region (URR), CRR South, CRR North, LRR, and NBR.
On Access Road, the Ministry stated that sixty-eight thousand three hundred and seventy-five (68,375) meters/68.4 kilometers of access road has opened up seven thousand (7000) hectares of land for cultivation in URR, LRR, CRR South, CRR North, NBR, and WCR.
“Nema has distributed 600 tonnes of certified rice seeds (various varieties), twelve (12) tonnes of groundnuts and thirteen tonnes of maize seeds to farmers across the country,” stated the MoA, adding that four hundred and eighty-five (485) Metric Tons of seeds were distributed over the period to approximately 14,000 farmers, of which 75% were women.
Continuing further, the Ministry indicated that thirty-three (33) garden schemes were developed across the country equipped with boreholes, solar panels, tanks, reservoirs for water distribution, compost chambers for fertilizer, waiting sheds and fencing.
It stated that five of the gardens have gone under massive production and have realized total of D11,077,862.00 Million from the sales of harvested vegetables.
Nema has introduced bio fortified crops and establishes Mothers’ Clubs at all of thirty-three gardens to promote nutrition (and hygiene) activities in the Gambia.
On Agro-forestry, the MOA noted that, a total of twenty-five (25) hectares of Agroforestry in twenty-five communities, forty-seven hectares of Community Woodlots established in eighteen communities and 270 hectares of mangrove trees in eighteen villages have already been restored.
Speaking on Nema Project’s initiatives on Matching Grant Scheme, Agricultural Mechanization, Processing and Commercialization, the Ministry highlighted that Nema has mobilized more than GMD 28 million in private sector investment in Agriculture in The Gambia through its partnership with Financial Institutions and private Equipment Suppliers under the Matching Grant Scheme.
In partnership with GYIN Gambia, as the Agriculture Ministry noted, the Nema project has provided support to establish thirty-five (35) youth owned and managed enterprises through GYIN Gambia’s Rural Youth Awards.
It continued: “Through the Nema Matching Grant component, capital financing for forty-one (41) Agric service enterprises were supported and of which fifteen are youth owned groups.
“Ten farms were provided with irrigation facilities and two power-tillers for horticultural production, thirteen tractors for ploughing and related services, four refrigerated trucks for cold storage services for horticultural products. Fifteen sets of milling/processing machinery for rice and other cereals, including Cassava processing plant.”
It disclosed that Nema has also supported farmers with six tractors, eighteen motorized rice planters, six milling machines and six mini-combined rice harvesters for six Farmer Cooperatives across the country, adding that another group of forty (40) beneficiaries, including youth enterprises, were supported with farming machinery, eighteen combined harvesters, millers, 18 eighteen trans-planters and six Mersey Ferguson 4WD Tractors.
In partnership with United Purpose, Nema has developed and rolled out a mobile-based market-price information system (MIS) with capabilities to subscribe up to 3000 groups in horticultural production and 500 facilitators. According to the Ministry, the project has established six Women Marketing Federations-one in all agricultural regions-, and a national Apex Federation, all trained and strengthened for operational capabilities.
During the IFAD’s Mission’s visit to Minister Fabureh, International Consultant on Agricultural Development and Human Resources for IFAD, Mr. Cheikh Tidiane Sarr, has said their mission was a follow up visit since the mid-term review, one and half year ago, as he pointed out that the project has made significant improvement since then. He avowed that they were impressed with the performance of the project with rate of 95% implementation completed, of which 80% beneficiaries are women.
“The beneficiaries have taken ownership of the project and the sustainability rate of the project is very high after the project phases out,” Sarr told the gathering, while commending the Nema Director Mr. Momodou L. Gassama and his staff for the successful implementation of the project.
It could be refreshed that the IFAD Country Director for The Gambia and Mauritania, Haoua Sienta in her statement during the visit said, IFAD is honored by the Gambia’s nomination to head the working group (NGOs and donors) on resource mobilization, policy strengthening focusing on key areas such as sustainable Agricultural production and productivity, climate change resilience, environment and resource management, nutrition, inclusions of gender and youths among other areas to be highlighted by the working group.
The Lead Environmentalist and Climate Expert for West Africa and Central Africa Division of The IFAD, Amath Pathe Sene, intimated that they were working on finalizing an USD80M project which is named ‘Reliance Organization for Transformative Smallholder Agriculture, in short ROOTS.
He informed that the project is expected to commence at the end of this year, and it would reinforce and strengthen areas already implemented by the Nema project.
Sene reported also that ROOTS’ focus would be improving household nutrition and building climate change resilience while increasing production and productivity on rice, vegetable production, food transformation and value addition.
