According
to reliable sources, The Gambia is about to receive food aid.
The
current Minister of Agriculture, Hon. Omar Jallow, who is no stranger to the
Agricultural sector, with over a decade of experience as Minister of Agriculture during the PPP Government, should
use his experience to remarkably alleviate the causes of great injustice that
Gambian farmers suffered during the past 22 years of dictator Jammeh’s
repressive government.
In
view of the plight of Gambian farmers, there is urgent need to focus on the
various donors to secure adequate food supplies during the coming years .When
food fails civilization falls apart. There is no substitute for food.
Food
aid should therefore be regarded as supplement to the amount of food that
Gambian farmers produce.
In
order to meet the increasing demand for food throughout the country, the wounds
inflicted by the Jammeh regime on every sector of agriculture should be healed
by accessing the needs of farmers with the view to practically enabling growers
to grow what they eat and eat what they grow rather than amplifying empty
slogan shrouded with overambitious aims to become self-sufficient in food
production.
Indeed
the only realistic approach to gaining food sufficiency in The Gambia is
through the revolutionary measures to change from subsistence farming to
mechanised farming.
The
technological appliances necessary to bring about this change are available.
The substantial increases in productivity necessary to meet the food demand
have to be addressed with utmost urgency to cater for a brighter future for the
Gambian farmers.
We
in The Gambia, in this blessed enclave, this tiny, economically ill endowed
country, yet a shining example of peacefulness, of homogeneity and of courage,
have succeeded in winning our political freedom and of maintaining our national
cohesion, despite our family quarrels despite the vicissitudes of the weather
and emphatically, in spite of the repercussions of the economic crises of the
outside industrialised world upon us together with their fierce contradiction
and conflicts.
Thanks
to the devoted efforts and patriotism of our national leaders and torchbearers
of all shades of political outlook who united, were able to rescue our nation
from the shackles of tyranny and those of whom today constituted the vanguard
force in the arduous course of steering our national destiny.
But
in every process of true emancipation, one must not concentrate all the time to
one side of such undertaking, since there are other sides too of vital
importance. The same searchlight has still to be pointed further in order to
harmonize the whole setup.
There
was no even distribution of the economic gains
of this country. Rather there was what amounts to the economic violations
of the human rights of the Gambian farmers and kits and kin.
The
Gambian farmers are the main producers of our major means of existence. They
provide the backbone of our economic life. The crops and livestock they provide
by way of back braking, outmoded methods under scourging tropical sun and
torrential rain with half empty stomach - they supply to the state.
The
State authorities process the export transactions and secure good foreign
exchange.
But
when it comes to the distribution of such revenue, the peasant / farmers - the
very producers - receive far less than the state officials who sit behind their
cozy office desk to negotiate with world market consortiums for the sale of the
product.
If
this is economic justice for the peasants / farmers then the word has no
meaning. The Government employee enjoys a pension and gratuity paid out of the
money raised from the production of the peasant / farmer, yet the peasant /
farmer does not enjoy a pension let alone gratuity. This is economic injustice
of the First Order.
The
unskilled labourer who bears the brunt of the day and the hit, the docile
worker, the heavy duty truck driver, the docker who loads and unloads the
material need of our wherewithal faced with all concomitant risks and dangers;
the fisherman in his trawler, who braves the waves and inclement weather
surrounded by the threat or unpredictable peril; the electrical subordinate,
who translate theoretical instructions into practice and as such constantly
stands exposed to electrocution in order to provide power supply to the nation,
particularly the well to do, who consume far more electric energy; the
non-commission Policeman on the beat who stand face to face with hardened
criminals with all the inherent risks, the genuine bricklayer whose sored hands
make life normal and even comfortable for his exploiters to name a few, are all
among the underpaid and socially insecure among the gigantic army of labour who
by hand and brain create the structures, without which our homeland would have
been doomed to a state of anarchy.
Irrefutably,
every worker and peasant / farmer, every participant in the national
reconstruction process is important and indispensable. The emphasis here is
that each and every person who labours should be remunerated equitably.
Exploitation
of man by man is no natural phenomenon. It is the deliberate devise of man. So
for one to grab more than his share of the whole, is outright cheating.
Wherever and whenever injustice is possible, justice should and could be
possible.
Now
it is time to focus on the most vital, most expedient, most pertinent yet most
titanic battle of all. It is the battle for economic justice for all our
people. This humble appeal from a retired but not tired is based on nothing but
the truth and will certainly vibrate infinite echoes in the hearts and
consciences of all those who care to browse over it and who qualify themselves
with the noble title of HUMAN BEINGS
