Ghana women Farmers Network Organization (FONG) recently paid a five-day exchange visit to the National Coordinating Organization for Women Association the Gambia NACOFAG wing women.
The delegation was received by NACOFAG officials at the Banjul International Airport and a meeting was conveyed on Wednesday 16 July 2014, at the NACOFAG office in Brikama.
According to officials of NACOFAG, the visit was undertaken to meet with the NACOFAG women to discuss and share ideas about farming, food processing, trading, vegetable garden, fish processing, and livestock management, particularly processing, smoking, and drying of fish with a view to making key recommendations on the way forward.
In her remarks, the leader of the Ghana women farmer delegation, Madam Margaret Mensa, expressed her gratitude to the NACOFAG coordinator, Mr Alieu Sowe, his staff and the Gambian women farmers for opening their doors to hosting and welcoming them to The Gambia to share knowledge with one another.
Madam Mensa said their mission to the Smiling Coast of Africa is to meet with NACOFAG women to share ideas, learn from one another skills of farming, trading, food and fish processing, and poultry management, particularly fish processing, as well as to look at the way forward and make key recommendations.
She described fish processing in The Gambia as a big achievement for Gambian women, especially in respect of processing and sending it to Ghana for sale, which attracted them to come and see for themselves, to learn more from the Gambian people.
Madam Mensa also assured NACOFAG women that their partnership would continue on good stead as it would go a long way in helping them in their source of livelihood, even as they had learnt a lot just in the short period of their interaction with the Gambian women.
‘’We will make the best use of the knowledge that we have learnt from the NACOFAG women as we see a difference too, like the big fish that we saw at the river side in Tanji, which is not in Ghana,’’ she explained.
NACOFAG vice president Madam Fatou Samba-Njie stressed that the visit of the Ghana women to The Gambia could go a long way in helping them as they interact and learn more from one another skills in fish processing, livestock management, poultry management, trading, food processing and other aspects.
She also said they were very impressed with the visit as they had had meetings with them at the NACOFAG office from where they went with them to visit the river side at Tanji to see the women involved in drying, smoked fish, which was very impressive to the Ghana women as such types of big fish are hardly seen in Ghana compared to The Gambia.
Madam Samba further described the visit to The Gambia as very important as they had learnt from one another more skills and were also able to meet with the Minister of Fisheries to discuss and influence the policy of the fish sector in Ghana.
She noted that the problem of farmers, processors, traders, and other stakeholders of the sector was marketing of their product.
“We will work hard as women to ensure that we get money and open an account with the banks to use that money to solve our problem,’’ she said.
She thanked the Ghana women for their visit to The Gambia and for sharing their knowledge with them and urged them to continue partnering with them to improve the skills of the people of both organizations and countries.