Urban Agriculture Directorate Aims to Enhance Production, Productivity

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Second from Right; Director Badgie during the field visit

By Kebba AF Touray

The Director of the Directorate of Urban Agriculture, Papia Badgie, has said the Directorate aims to attain agricultural production and productivity in urban agriculture within the Kanifing Municipality and Banjul. 

She said this on the sidelines of the 2025 farmer field day held on Monday, 20 January 2025. 

“The establishment of the new regional directorate will help accelerate the attainment of agricultural production and productivity within the two Councils (KMC and BCC),” she said. Badjie explained that in times of food shortage, high prices, malnutrition, and food insecurity due to climate change, calls for new approaches to guarantee sufficient food supply could be micro-gardening, a concept that focuses on enhancing farming productivity for families with limited farm space in urban, peri-urban and rural areas, adding that it involves planting crops on rooftops, balconies, terraces and patios, and by also cultivating plants in recycled locally available materials like old car tires. 

She said the benefits of micro-gardening include benefits to the environment because it integrates the use of household waste as compost and manure to improve productivity.

“Micro-gardening consumes less than 3 liters of water per day and in one year, it can consume about 1,000 liters. Micro-gardening can also be fertilized regularly with compost from household bio-degradable waste at no cost,” she added. 

Economically, she said this presents a good innovative solution to ensure food security and nutrition, household income generation, and an alternative for employment of young people.

On the health benefits, she said it enables low-income families to meet their needs in vitamins, and mineral consumption including plant proteins, through the provision of fresh nutritious vegetables, which the WHO recommended should be consumed daily up to 400g per person/day.