By Mamadou Edrisa Njie
Informed by his experiences in the Gambia’s agricultural sector, the Director of National Agricultural Land and Water Management Development Project (Nema), Mr. Momodou L. Gassama, holds the strong opinion that vegetables production is the solution to overcome poverty in Africa including The Gambia.
In an interview with the Nema official at his office located in Abuko in the West Coast Region of The Gambia, he expressed his settled vied that if farmers, especially the young ones, venture into horticulture, the country would soon overcome poverty and address the 41.5 per cent rate of unemployment.
The strategy that could create more jobs and overcome poverty, as he pointed to, is the project supporting the Agricultural Value Chain Interactions Platforms (AVIP), a two-year initiative which is meant to contribute to the achievement of key Nema outcomes by establishing operational and functional women and youth-based interaction platforms that create secure access to profitable local, regional and national markets.
Director Gassama is optimistic that tthrough the AVIP project, hundred young people (men and women) who are today benefiting from Nema interventions, could realize increased rice and vegetable productivity and participate effectively and profitably in national and regional markets.
He pointed out that the bulk of these achievements is found in the Nema supported vegetable gardens, noting that producer organizations, including youth enterprises, “have increased access to financial and non-financial services through improved interactions with other actors of selected value chains through the interaction platforms. The medium and long-term resulting effect is increased employment and revenues for rural youth and women”.
According to Mr. Gassama, the whole idea of the platforms is to ensure that there is adequate information sharing between and among the key actors of the value chain to be able to support marketing of whatever product (s) that have been produced by the farmers.
In order to overcome the challenges faced such as marketing of vegetables, the Nema Director posited that cold stores are needed. He informed this medium that his project is presently constructing storage facilities in their intervention sites.
Another challenge, he cited, is that the deep buyers (big companies) in the greater Banjul areas don’t have an understanding or knowledge of what is being produced in the country in terms of vegetables, rice, millet etc. and are not getting the adequate information on what quantities are being produced. It’s as a result of those challenges that Nema project funded the AVIP to address the gap- by engaging economic operators and the producers. In the AVIP, “we’ve seen the effective participation of young people who are members of GYIN Gambia Chapter.
“I can say that the AVIP Facilitators are all young people drawn from GYIN Gambia Chapter and supporting women and youth in their gardens because we believe that bringing the actors together- the transporters, buyers, traders and the producers -, we’ll be able to create jobs in the value chain, thus contribute to reducing poverty. This initiative has enhanced and facilitated access to markets whereby vegetable producers are marketing their produce with the youth playing an effective role as brokers”.
While acknowledging the critical role the youth are playing in the AVIP, the Nema official said they are hopeful that in the coming years, “we will see a good number of youth brokers in the value chain”.
Expounding on the value chain development, he told this medium that the Nema project has linked the producers and traders, transporters (and a good number of the transporters are youths), and this has been manifested in the jobs being created.
In consolidating the gains made in the implementation of the agricultural value chain, the Nema project has had some productive discussions with The Gambia Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) to engage their members in the agricultural commercialization to buy vegetables from Nema gardens.
Noting that some members of GCCI are able to buy large quantities of produce from farmers, he, however, lamented that linking them with the producers was another constraint.
“The outcome of our meeting indicated that GCCI members will be engaged and linked with our producers through the Chamber and the Nema AVIP frameworks,” he revealed during the interview.
Director Gassama is positive that the AVIP would also serve as another sustainability measure for the exit of the Nema project. He added that AVIP “has and is linking” the operators in the value chain, and these interactions could continue independent of Nema.
He used the opportunity availed by this interview to salute the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)-financier of the Nema project- for its support and understanding in terms of focusing and helping Gambian farmers.
On Market Federations, he said Nema Project has a working partnership with United Purpose to provide technical support in production planning, storage and marketing of horticulture produce. This partnership, which started in 2017, has realized significant achievements as per the terms of the partnership of which the project developed production plans for all Nema supported gardens and 300 other women’s gardens across the country.
According to him, the project has also supported in the demarcation of gardens in line with good agricultural practices. He said they have developed and launched Market-price Information System, providing women with real time price information at the various target markets.
“The MIS is a mobile phone technology platform capable of collecting and communicating price information for various crops in the local language of the subscribers,” he informed.
In addition, the project is also said to have supported local storage facilities (containers) developed for drying of onions; and the formation of six (6) Market Federations and a national Apex Federation to support group sales, while also serving as economic operators for horticultural produce.
He described Market Federation as an equivalent of the Nema Producer Cooperatives and their role is to provide sales and marketing services to the producers.
“The Federations function like cooperatives (the producers are stakeholders in the Federations) and members are supported to open and maintain savings accounts with local micro-finance institutions in the rural areas,” he stated.
In summing-up, he stated that producers contribute a percentage of their sales to the Federation’s Account, thus promoting ownership and sustainability of the gardens.
Gassama went on to state that the Apex Federation coordinates the affairs of the regional and garden-based cooperatives and could “participate in policy dialogue with relevant authorities on issues affecting horticulture production and marketing, much like an interest group”.
