The presentation done on the sidelines of this mega summit, was made by the Hunan Daily that recently visited The Gambia to assess achievements made in this agricultural aid project sites, and to explore how Chinese agricultural experts and local farmers work together to improve food production.
The presentation done through videos and pictorials in short narrates how agricultural experts from Yuan Longping High-Tech Agriculture Co. Ltd assisted in improving the country’s paddy rice cultivation.
During the FOCAC Summit, the Hunan Daily Press also dispatched a media team to The Gambia, which conducted interviews on the theme "Friends and Partners" to learn about Gambia-China Agricultural Cooperation Outcomes on the spot.
The Chinese media crew also portrayed the activities currently underway at Maruo farms, which represents a significant Gambia-China agricultural cooperation outcome.
The presentation in essence revealed the vast arable fertile land in the country and the favourable conditions for agricultural mechanisation. However, affected by local climates and irrigation methods, expert study show that the field water level is uncontrollable, which could cause inconveniency when using agricultural machines.
Huang Zhi, head of Yuan Longping High-tech Agriculture Co. Ltd, revealed that local people levelled the land and built water conservancy facilities to keep the water level under control and ensure agricultural machines could be driven into the farmlands.
Also, Longping Hi-tech transported rice transplanters and harvesters from China, with which Huang Zhi and the experts conducted training in the fields, with local agricultural machine operators and maintenance personnel.
Musa Darboe, head of Maruo Farms, explained that he expanded the area to plant paddy rice from 3 hectares to 15 hectares.
That, he said, helped him transition from single-cropping rice to double-cropping rice, adding that through his intervention, the paddy rice output increased to 7 tons per hectare, which was more than twice the local average output.
Maruo farms has now become the largest and first fully mechanised farm in The Gambia. The farm's paddy rice planting area has expanded to 2,000 hectares. It also offers agricultural machinery services to over 2,800 farmers in part of Central River Region.
The overall grain output per unit area in the region has nearly doubled, driven by Maruo farms.
Demba Sabally, Minister for Agriculture in The Gambia, informed the reporter from Hunan Daily, that in 2023, the Gambia achieved its highest paddy rice output in history, thanks in large part to agricultural cooperation between the Gambia and China.
Minister Sabally also told the Chinese media crew that Longping Hi-tech's team provided comprehensive assistance to various stages of the Gambian agricultural production, including seed preparation, ploughing, transplanting, harvesting, and processing.
He expressed optimism that the Gambia's national grain output would continue to increase with the much-needed assistance for China.
