By Yero S. Bah
Omar Jatta of Tujereng Village in Kombo South is a final year student pursiung a Bachelor’s degree in Education at the International Open University (IOU). He is also engaged in vegetable gardening and poultry production, and Jatta explained to Mansa Banko Online that, it all started when he came back from the United Kingdom (UK) following a one year’s extracurricular study, in order to know the operationalization of the UK extracurricular activities. After his return to his native Gambia, Jatta said he found out that most of the vegetables and eggs sold in the Gambian markets were expensive.
He also noticed that, the eggs in the UK weren’t the same as the one on the Gambian markets, and that occasioned his market survey in which he gathered that the eggs in the Gambia are “mostly old”. That, according to him, pushed him into poultry and farming in general, with the belief that Gambians too should eat fresh and healthier eggs and vegetables.
“That is how I started working on the poultry house and vegetable garden,” he pointed out. Jatta revealed, at the moment, he has sixty layers (60) and had already built another house which could accommodate about 300 layer birds. The aim of the project is to make sure healthy vegetables and eggs are available for the people in the Gambia as well as create employment opportunities for citizens, he asserted.
Among Jatta’s success stories, he told us, is that he is now able to supply local shops and markets with fresh eggs and vegetables, saying most of the imported eggs that are mostly sold in the country are bad ones; while claiming his “eggs are fresher and healthier”. He said some of the proceeds of his business are spent on the orphans, adding he purchases school going materials for them.
However, there are challenges the Tujereng eggs and vegetable producer faces, particularly water supply, disclosing he uses a local well to water his vegetables in his garden.
He concluded: “Watering is difficult at the moment. I will be happy if the well can be turned into a borehole. And, another challenge is to improve the poultry as I wait for [the approval of] a grant I applied [for] at the Youth Empowerment Project (YEP) through the Tekkii Fii project.”
