Mr. Abdoulie Touray, the Project Coordinator for the Central Project Coordinating Unit (CPCU) at the Ministry of Agriculture has disclosed that agricultural output covers only half of the Gambia’s domestic consumption needs.
Delivering a keynote address at an awareness raising workshop on the on the Matching Grant Scheme (MGS) of the Gambia Inclusive and Resilient Development Project (GIRAV), he explained the objective of the project is to support the development of inclusive and competitive agriculture value chains, focusing on smallholder farmers and Agri-entrepreneurs in Project targeted areas.
“Agricultural output covers only half of the country’s domestic consumption needs, with decreasing food production per capita leading to increased food imports with the resulting risk of facing severe food security issues at both household and national levels”, noted Project Coordinator Touray.
The agriculture and agribusiness sector in the Gambia is hampered by a number of constraints that need to be addressed in order to unlock the potential of the agriculture and agribusiness sector, he posited, adding that key among the challenges included weakly organized value chains; limited access to finance; limited access to input and technologies; inadequate marketing infrastructure and lack of adequate transport infrastructure and services.
He recalled that in 2018, the total harvested area was estimated at 420,000 hectares, or about 70 percent of the country’s total arable area used, overwhelmingly under rain-fed annual crops with less than 3 percent under irrigation despite important water resources (Gambia River) and less than 1 percent under permanent crops. “The private sector’s contribution to agribusiness development is still low. ”
Pointing to ReSAKSS 2019 report, he informed the audience that the performance of the agri-food sector had been poor and erratic; that agricultural growth has declined over time in The Gambia, averaging 8.5 percent per year, during 1995–2003; and–1.1 percent per year, during 2003–2008 following irregular rainfall combined with decreased investments in the sector.
Touray told the convergence the workshop aims to give Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) that are active in the following priority value chains: Rice, Horticulture, Cashew, Poultry and Maize all the information required for them to apply and benefit from the GIRAV Matching Grant funds.
He observed that agriculture in the Gambia is dominated by subsistence-oriented rain-fed crop and traditional livestock production systems. Marketable surpluses are low, with a food self-sufficiency ratio of about 50 percent, the audience heard.
“As part of efforts aimed at addressing these and other related challenges hampering the sector and overall national development targets, the Gambia Government in close partnership with the World Bank formulated the GIRAV Project,” the CPCU Project Coordinator stated, while also disclosing the World Bank has provided a grant of US$ 40 Million to the Gambia to fund the five-year project titled “The Gambia Inclusive and Resilient Agricultural Value Chain Development Project” in short GIRAV.
The five-year project aims to support agricultural value chain development, and thus help the country move from subsistence to a more productive, inclusive, resilient, sustainable and market-oriented agriculture.
The intervention, according to Touray, would support new approaches that are required to break the vicious circle of agriculture and agribusiness sector that has been historically locked into low productivity of small farms with limited access to market, finance, technologies as well as being largely vulnerable to climate and weakly organized value chain.
He informed them that the Project is fully aligned with the Government’s programs and development priorities as outlined in various national, regional and global development blueprints.
“The Project supports GNAIP II-FNS principles related to leveraging investment by the private sector in the agricultural value chains through the creation of conducive policy environment along with the necessary institutional and legal environment necessary to trigger private sector development and growth,” he continued.
The project design is consistent with the GNAIP II and CPF objective of ensuring gender equality and equity by promoting youth and women’s economic independence and equitable access to economic resources.
“The Project is intended to reduce gender disparities in the agricultural sector that hold back female productivity and entrepreneurship through diverse interventions including the provision of matching grant incentives for productive investments”, CPCU Coordinator told the convergence.
He’s optimistic that these activities would contribute to increased productivity and commercial access and promotes women-led agribusinesses along the value chains with a long-term impact on household incomes and welfare.
“This Project is also by design intended to contribute to the achievement of the World Bank Group’s (WBG’s) twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity, as well as the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of no poverty and zero hunger by 2030,” he highlighted. He added it is aligned with the WBG’s COVID-19 Crisis Response Approach Paper and the Resilient, Inclusive, Sustainable and Efficient (RISE) framework.
