For
the past 70 years the economy of our country has been based on Agriculture, yet
many Gambians, especially those living in rural Gambia continue to suffer in
hunger and poverty. The pepper variety called ‘’Guana’’ today is imported from
Senegal, when in fact it can be produced in our country. Banana is imported
from Conakry, Onion from Holland, Beans from Senegal, even Carrot is imported
from Senegal. Our staple food rice, is also imported at high cost to the
nation. We spent D2.3 billion importing rice in 2016. During Tobaski, we import
tens of thousands of sheep and cattle from Senegal and Mauritania.
The
backbone of our economy is agriculture, yet our food expenditure continues to be
very high, consuming about 80% of the income of many rural families. The
problem is not limited to cost of food, but also we have a problem of poor food
quality, which evidently affects our health and increases our health spending.
This situation persists despite the fact that about four hundred thousand
Gambians are employed in the sector, which in itself is an indication of the
serious policy problems in the sector.
So
how did we get here? How did we break our backbone? Well to find answers to
these questions we must revisit history. When agriculture is mentioned the
first thing that comes to my mind and the minds of many Gambians, is groundnut.
This is because the whole sector of agriculture was for the past 70 years, and
is still centered around groundnuts. Our over reliance on groundnuts has made
the whole sector and the economy
vulnerable to external shocks and other risks.
In
fact the increase in poverty in the country over the last three decades can be
attributed to the decrease in the demand of groundnuts in the world market and
strict measures followed by importing countries on aflatoxin levels. The
previous two governments could not come up with the necessary policies to
respond to the decrease in demand and aflatoxin levels, as a result of this the
income of hundreds of thousands of
farmers and families dropped to levels that our country has never seen
before. Of course this situation forced many youths who would have been
employed in agriculture to leave the rural settlements for the now congested
urban settlements or embark on the suicide journey across the Mediterranean
sea.
The
fundamental problems of ‘’akrikolcho’’ (as it is called in Kiang), which
continue to derail our development can be summarized as follows;
And
most importantly, the lack of a well communicated national agriculture policy
to guide farmers
Agriculture
of course had its heydays. This period was when little Gambia with a low
literacy rate was able to process groundnuts into groundnut oil and cake. Then,
SUBU DURANGO (peanut soup with meat) was a normal meal even in rural Gambia. In
those days the annual income of many farmers was more than that of civil
servants. Yes in those days the word hunger
was not in our vocabulary. All these were only possible through robust
government investment in the groundnut sector.
The
Jawara government through the Gambia Cooperative Union (GCU) and later through
the Gambia Produce Marketing Board (GPMB) directly managed the groundnut value
chain. The government also laid the infrastructure needed for the
transportation of groundnut from inland settlements to the coast. These
included small inland ports along the River Gambia, and barges were supplied to
transport groundnut and other goods along the river. Also groundnut selling
points (Seckos) were set up across the country, where farmers sold their
produce at subsidised prices. The government also provided farmers with
fertilizers and seeds, and most importantly an Agriculture bank was set up to
help farmers with low interest loans to buy machines and simple farm implements
and inputs. So it should not come as a surprise that Agriculture experienced a
boom during this period, which resulted in a noticeable improvement in living
standard.
So
how can we move on and solve the problems of the agriculture sector thereby
providing steady incomes to hundreds of thousands of Gambians, improving our
overall food security, and ultimately improving living standards of our
countrymen. Solving problems of the
sector should concern every single Gambian, because agriculture is the only
sector that can lift hundreds of thousands of Gambians from poverty within a
very short period. Also based on the level of education in the country it is
the sector that we can easily tap into to grow our economy and improve lives.
The
first thing we need to do in solving the problem with our back bone
(agriculture), is to formulate and clearly communicate to our farmers, a solid
and clear agriculture policy as part of our economic development policy, which
can be used to drive our economy. Such a policy, must clearly spell out crops
we need to produce, the animals we need to rear, the products we will process
within the country, and the resources we will use for the production and
processing of the selected crops or agricultural produce.
After
we formulate the policies, before we do anything, we must set up an agriculture
bank or create an agriculture fund from the national budget that will be used
to implement our policies. Lack of low interest loans to fund agricultural
ventures has affected the development of agriculture in our country. The
current rates(15-17) at our local banks,
cannot be utilized by our farmers to buy machinery and valuable farm inputs to
increase their productivity. Agricultural investments require patient capital
(capital invested for a medium or long term, generally 5 -10 years), that is
lent at low interest. Setting up an agricultural bank or creating an
agriculture fund will solve the problem of financing for agricultural ventures.
Such a bank or fund can lend to farmers at lower interest rates( 3-5%), for
periods of 3-5 years. Interest payments made by farmers can be pumped back into
the bank or fund to support more farmers. The government can go a step further
and create a special advisory and mentor group under the Ministry of
Agriculture, whose responsibility will be to guide and monitor the progress of
the beneficiaries of the loans to minimize risk and ensure that the loans serve
their purpose.
Am
sure by now every single Gambian including those living in the hamlets of Kiang
have heard the word DIVERSIFICATION from government officials, anytime they
talk about agriculture. To put it simply, diversification means not putting all
our eggs in one basket. In agriculture it means
not putting all our resources, energy and hope on one product or crop,
in our case, groundnuts. This makes sense, because in the event of a problem
with a single product that we put all our hope on, the whole country suffers.
We have seen this happen with groundnuts when the demand for it decreased
partly due to aflatoxin infection.
In order to protect ourselves from such risk
we must grow different crops and plants, also rear sheep and cattle, so that if
there is a problem with one the others can keep us on our feet until we solve
the problem. Of course many crops and plants were suggested for this purpose,
but i think the most important are
Cashew, Banana, Rice, Onion, Potato, Sesame, Tomato, Bean, and Cotton. All
these can be grown and some processed in The Gambia at a large scale if the
right policies are adopted. Apart from Cashew, cotton, and Sesame the demand
for all the others is very high within the country and 90% of the demand is met
through imports. If we can grow all these in the country at least D4 billion
will stay within the country and go to our farmers and more than this amount
can be gained from exports.
To
be continued