Mr. Saikou Manneh of Basse Kabakama is a qualified teacher who decided make a career change, from the classroom to full-time farming, in the form of rearing of chicken broiders and vegetable cultivation.
In a recent interview with this pro-agric and entrepreneurship online newspaper, Manneh narrated his occupational change from teaching to gardening and poultry.
The agropreneur operates Africa’s Hope Farm, and according to him, he was motivated into farming by the Garden Master position he had held in all the schools he taught; but he also studied Agriculture and General Science at the Gambia College in Brikama.
Having dumped the chalks for chicks, the Basse Kabakama native started his poultry farm in 2019, but he admitted the beginning was quite challenging. However, with passion, Manneh was able to face the attendant hurdles, to uplift the status of his family. Going into farming with a business perspective, within a year, he was able to change his economic narratives, he indicated.
He recalled telling his students that one day, “you will find me in my garden or poultry as a farmer. The students thought that was impossible, given the way I roll the chalk on the blackboard”.
The teacher-turned-farmer noted that societal views regarding poultry and vegetables productions were the key challenges he faced initially, because people in his community, he asserted, thought that gardening and poultry were purely for the ‘failed people in society’. But he said parental support boosted his spirit as he believes white-colored-jobs are not the only options available for people to make it in life.
Another challenge he once faced was that his poultry farm was flooded during last year’s rainy season, few days after receiving a consignment of over two hundred (200) chicks he had ordered from Senegal, and close to 50 chickens died immediately from that flash-floods, he recalled. “That night, tears rolled down my cheeks,” he recalled.
Like many others, Manneh too is not immune to the usual “financial challenges” Gambian entrepreneurs are facing in the course of running their business establishments. He, therefore, used this medium to appeal for support from the Gambia Government and philanthropists, so as to enhance his poultry and vegetables productions. He claimed to have the vision of improving the nutritional value of his community, and in that regard, he stressed the need to have a proper poultry house for a better production output.
Notwithstanding, he held: “I am one of the luckiest young entrepreneurs in the Upper River Region. This could not have been possible without the support of GYIN-Gambia, GIZ, Incubator Gambia and others.” He acknowledged the above-mentioned institutions have contributed immensely into his business development as he underwent different capacity building (trainings) on various business entrepreneurships, inter alia record-keeping and financial management.
Among his goals is to make Africa’s Hope Farm a leading poultry farm in URR, saying their target is to get over one thousand (1000) birds by the year 2025, and establish two more branches in Wuli and Kantora, respectively.
“We came purposely to reduce malnutrition in rural Gambia, promote local chicken meat as well as mitigate irregular migration in the region,” said Manneh. Africa’s Hope Farm proprietor further noted a high rate of chicken consumption in the Gambia majority of which are imported into the country. He challenged government to empower Gambian poultry farmers through heavy investment; pointing out that it could invest in hatchery machines and chicken feed production in the country.
Manneh said currently, Gambians would go to Senegal for such services and products, and chicken feeds are costly, hence the high prices of poultry products, thus preventing Gambian producers from meeting the market demand in the Gambia. He suggested that government could also provide storage facilities for poultry farmers which could be erected in every region of this country to cater for the needs of Gambian entrepreneurs in the poultry and gardening subsectors.
“Always push to reach your desired level,” he encouraged. He added that the rural people’s perspectives towards poultry and gardening, are changing in his community, reasoning they have now realized that these are fruitful adventures. He believed with such initiatives, communities could be empowered to change the narratives.
Manneh concluded by expressing gratitude for the support given to him, while calling for more financial support to enable him expand his production capacity.
