By Lamin Fatty
Farmers supported by the GAFSP agricultural project have expressed delight with the impact of agricultural projects on farming communities.
Foroyaa accompanied officials who visited some of these Project intervention sites in the Upper River Region and the Central River Region to assess the projects’ impact on productivity.
A farm that belongs to the family of Jallow Kunda in Sare Garaba Tumana District in URR was supported by the Gambia Agriculture and Food Security Project
(GAFSP)under the Ministry of Agriculture.
The support was in the form of seeds, fertilizer and ploughing services.
Yaya Jallow the head of the family expressed delight over the GAFSP project for the intervention.
“My family alone cannot consume all this rice and we must sell some part of it,” he said.
He called on the GAFSP and other projects to extend the coverage of intervention to many other communities for sustainability.
“I am calling on the government projects, the ministry of agriculture to extend their coverage of such interventions to increase the productivity, and with such interventions soon we can sustain food self-sufficiency,” he said.
Peter Baldeh the president, National Rice Farmers Association expressed satisfaction in this year’s project support to rice farmers across the country.
“Looking at the rice field it is impressive and any project that supported this field, we’ll be happy to see this” Mr. Baldeh said.
He said GAFSP project is supporting rice farmers countrywide, and as the national president of the Rice Farmers Association in the Gambia, “we are taking stock of the impact of projects and looking at areas that need to be improved,” he said.
He commended the government of the Gambia through the Ministry of agriculture, Livestock and Food Security.
“Normally they (GAFSP) support quality seeds and inputs like fertilizer, and for this region (URR), they supported over 170 hectares of rice seeds and fertilizer free of charge,” he disclosed.
Peter Baldeh emphasised the need to take stock and report back to government through the ministry about the project impacts and the areas that might need improvement.
He added that last year they even had land preparation done for them by tractor ploughing, but this year the project, maybe due to constraints, they cannot support ploughing their lands.
“But quite honestly rice farmers are growing a lot of rice and to reduce post-harvest losses we need to increase the fleet of combined harvesters and become mechanized for us to attain this dream of getting rice food self-sufficiency by the year 2030,” Mr. Baldeh asserted.
He said it is a clear manifestation that rice farmers have have taken the button to make sure that we feed our country. “This is our dream and our vision,” Rice Farmers Association president said.
In Barrow Kunda, Wulli West where GAFSP project supported farmers with the construction of a standard seed store for rice and maize seeds, and fertilizer.
Karamo Touray National President for Maize Farmers Association, said that the store provided by GAFSP project is more than useful to them.
“This store is very important, as it helpful to us; it is even more than useful to us,” he said.
Karamo stated that through the provision of good seeds and fertilizer, this year they have experienced a bumper harvest on maize and they cannot consume all the produce and will sell part of it.
Musa.F Sowe, the President of National Coordinating Organisation for Farmer Associations the Gambia (NACOFAG) said basically, the intention of the government is to support farmers and that, that support yields benefits for the community, and serves as an opportunity for them to create or generate some income from what they do.
“The rice farm is now ready for harvesting, it means, this particular community, will not buy rice this year,” Mr. Sowe pointed out, because they have enough rice to consume and equally sell part of the rice.
He stated that it was very difficult over the years to have government interventions in the form of rice hybrid seeds, fertilizer and services.
According him, now all inputs are provided for by the government through, GAFSP project under the Ministry of Agriculture.
Musa Sowe said he has come out on behalf of NACOFAG, to monitor and assess these interventions, and to see how impactful government support projects to the farmers.
by talking to the farmers directly.
“But equally to see if there are any challenges or constraints, which we will also put in a report and share it with government,” NACOFAG president added.
In the Central River Region (CRR) farmers in Sami District, CRR North , and Sare Debbo in Upper Falladou West, CRR South made similar remarks.
In Boiram CRR South a woman farmer called Awa Jagne who is well known as champion farmer told Foroyaa that she has cultivated five hectares of groundnuts, six hectares maize, two hectares of beans, five hectares rice, seven hectares of millet and one hectares of findi this year.
“Through the support from GAFSP, GIRAV and NACOFAG projects we were provided with seeds, fertilizer and farm implements, which has significantly increased the yield compared to last year,” he said.
