This rejoinder focuses on the specific claims where Minister Sabally attempted to dispute our findings: the late arrival of fertilizers, the absence of agricultural financing, and the neglect of horticultural gardens.
Late Arrival of Fertilizer
Government-provided fertilizer has chronically arrived late. This is not a partisan claim - it has been confirmed by the National Audit Office under the current administration. In a performance audit released in 2024, the NAO documented that government fertilizer arrived late in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 across all regions of the country, based on direct interviews with farmers.
And it has continued to date. It is also worth noting that Minister Sabally's response came at the end of June, and as of that date, not a single kilogram of fertilizer had reached farmers upcountry. For the Minister to stand before the nation and deny this reality is not only factually wrong - it reveals how deeply out of touch he is with conditions on the ground. His continued tenure at this critical ministry reflects the Barrow administration's lack of seriousness toward the agricultural sector.
Absence of Agricultural Financing
GFA correctly identified the absence of agricultural financing for the average Gambian. Smallholder farmers and agribusiness SMEs across the country can attest to this gap firsthand.
Minister Sabally cited the Social Development Fund (SDF) as evidence that the government provides financing to farmers. This is false. While the SDF was originally designed to include agricultural financing, that function has long been discontinued. Under the Barrow administration, the SDF has been largely non-functional due to financial mismanagement by its leadership, including the Managing Director and Director of Finance - both of whom were eventually forced out after misappropriating millions of dalasi intended for Gambian entrepreneurs. This mismanagement persisted for years without consequence. The claim that this administration has been providing agricultural finance is demonstrably false.
The Minister also mentioned GAMIRSAL, a programme financed by the African Development Bank (AfDB). Citing a development partner's involvement does not, in itself, demonstrate that results have been delivered on the ground. Minister Sabally offered no figures on how many farmers benefited or how much financing actually reached Gambian farmers through this scheme - because no meaningful government-attributable agricultural financing exists. It is also worth recalling that the AfDB financed the SDF as well, which did not prevent its mismanagement under the Barrow administration.
Neglected Horticultural Gardens
The neglect of horticultural farmers is plain to anyone who visits a village garden. Most gardens lack sufficient water to adequately irrigate their plots. Some have no borehole at all, and those that do often lack the capacity to water even half the garden. Virtually no garden has proper cold storage for perishable vegetables.
The primary support that Gambian horticultural farmers receive comes from their own communities, private philanthropists, or external donors - not from government. The few village gardens that were formally developed were built during the Jammeh administration. The minimal seed distributions from the current government are too small to be meaningful, and they consistently arrive late. The Barrow administration has no credible track record in this area.
Issues Left Unaddressed
We note that Minister Sabally chose not to address at least two other significant points raised in our original press release.
The first is the delayed payment of farmers for their groundnut harvest and the stagnation of groundnut prices. Some farmers wait up to five months to receive payment, and the government has implemented a payment system that places additional burdens on farmers rather than easing them. The Minister had no choice but to stay silent on this issue, as the evidence is abundant and well documented.
The second concerns both the failure to invest in irrigation and the misappropriation of development funding meant for that purpose. The total area of land under irrigation has actually declined. Infrastructure such as the JahallyPacharr rice fields has fallen into disrepair. At least D500 million in African Development Bank financing earmarked for rice field development and irrigation has been diverted -channelled instead to associates of President Adama Barrow.
Minister Sabally's silence on these points speaks volumes. The GFA has accurately described the reality facing Gambian farmers, and no amount of deflection changes that.
