Momodou Njie said in 2020 they were only able to buy a total of 2,224 tons, while in 2021 they bought 7,200 tons.
“For this year’s marketing season, we bought more than 40,000 metric tons. Normally what we do on annual basis is to make a forecast of what our requirements are and with that forecast, we engage the planning service unit for data under the Ministry of Agriculture.” he said.
He noted that based on historical trends, the Corporation could not even buy one-third of the projected amount hence it was prudent to scale down the forecast to 30,000 metric tons for 2020.
The actual figure in relation to this projection, he added, has gone beyond thirty thousand thus surpassing the target.
With regards to the buying of the groundnuts, MD Njie revealed that AGIB Bank Ltd was engaged to assist in facilitating the buying process.
“This year, at the beginning of the season, NFSPMC was the only buyer. In those days, it was NFSPMC and some private traders but this year it was only NFSPMC in the beginning because the market was not favorable internationally.” he said.
“A lot of the international buyers were not around and we were under a lot of pressure but despite the pressure, we were able to deliver since we surpassed our target and we paid all the farmers that were involved.”
He however, narrated that there were challenges along the way, which he added, includes logistics.
“Usually, the cash they take to a particular community gets exhausted before the end of the day which prompts the bank officials to come back to withdraw physical cash to be taken back to that particular community which compromises efficiency.”
“During my first year in office which was in 2020, mobile money transaction was introduced, where farmers were told that they would be paid, but perhaps due to the communication gap some of them were not too keen on that process.” he said.
On the issue of Senegalese farmers selling their groundnut to The Gambia, NFSPMC MD stated that is a plus to the nation. This, he added, is largely due to the attractive price compared to neighbouring countries.
“There is no difference between the nuts coming from the neighboring countries and the ones that are from The Gambia. We have learned from our lessons and we are preparing better and depending on the pre-harvest assessment done by the Ministry of Agriculture; it would give us an indication of the number of groundnuts that were planted and would be harvested for the season then we would also do our forecast based on that." he concluded.
By Fatou B. Cham,
Information Officer, MoA
