This is the right focus. With youth unemployment still high and women doing much of the farm work but owning little of the profit, agriculture cannot grow unless those who work the land are also equipped to run the business.
The numbers give reason for hope. More than 70 young entrepreneurs have already received investment-readiness coaching under the first Agri-Accelerator. Agri-Accelerator 2.0, budgeted at US$255,000 and running to 2028, will train 200 young women and men and support 100 youth-led agribusinesses. The tropical fruit project adds another lane — processing, packaging and marketing — where real value addition happens.
But as Permanent Secretary Alhagie Nagangdo rightly warned: “The trainings are not enough.”
We have seen it before. Okra and other produce flood the market, prices collapse, and farmers lose because there are no cold rooms, processing plants, or reliable market linkages. Coaching on financial literacy and responsible investment is vital, but it cannot survive a harvest with nowhere to store or sell.
That is why this new push must be measured not by how many workshops we hold, but by how many businesses last beyond one season. It must be measured by new SME’s in the Agri-Accelerator Hub that actually access finance, by women-led groups that move from selling raw fruit to selling juice and dried products, and by youth who can present bankable proposals and get funded.
FAO and the Ministry are right to emphasize responsible investment and market access. The inclusion of The Gambia in a three-country project with Togo and the Philippines also opens doors for learning and trade. The UN’s call for decent jobs and economic independence for women and youth must now be matched with infrastructure.
Government, banks, and the private sector must now play their part. We need targeted credit lines, storage facilities, and guaranteed offtake agreements. Training must be followed by tools, capital, and markets.
The Gambia’s future food security will not be built only in fields. It will be built in processing centers, in boardrooms where young people pitch investors, and in cooperatives run by women who control the value chain.
The initiatives launched this week are a strong start. Now let us make sure they don’t end at the conference centre.
The Point is: Train our youth and women, yes. But also finance them, store their produce, and buy what they grow. That is how agriculture becomes a business, not just a survival activity.