By Fatou B. Cham
The Minister of Agriculture, Honourable Dr. Demba Sabally has disclosed that The Gambia Government is taking major strides to transform the agriculture sector by addressing food insecurity and meeting the nutritional needs of its people.
Dr. Sabally made the disclosure during the recent launching of the African Emergency Food Production Facility (AEFPF) supported by the African Development Bank (AfDB) mission to The Gambia through the Rice Value Chain Transformation Project (RVCTP). The AEFPF is an additional financing that follows the joint meeting of the Ministers of Agriculture and Finance of the African Union member states on the African Emergency Food Production plan in which The Gambia participated. According to Minister Sabally, regardless of all these efforts, The Gambia’s high dependence on imports for staple and key commodities has deepened the country’s vulnerability to external shocks such as the effects of Covid-19 pandemic and the impact of the Russia-Ukraine crisis on the food supply system.
He elaborated that the AEFPF is the Africa Development Bank’s newly approved rapid response framework to address food crises and distribution of the supply of critical inputs for food production arising from the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Hon. Dr. Sabally stated that the Government of The Gambia requested additional financing under the African Emergency Food Production Facility to mitigate the effects of the external shocks and enable the Government to meet the country’s food production for 2022 and 2023.
He further revealed that under the same facility funds were allocated to support the Ministry of Agriculture to formulate a National Fertilizer Policy and a strategy for implementing the much-needed smart subsidy for fertilizer.
Rebecca Dadzie, Senior Agribusiness Officer, AfDB reminded the gathering that The Gambia Government has taken major strides in meeting food and nutritional security over the past few years, especially in the production of greens.
She added, “everyone is suffering from the current Russia-Ukraine crisis and the Government has not been left out which has caused an increase or hike in the price of input across the global market.”
“In response to the ongoing crises, the African Development Bank set up an Africa Emergency Food Production Facility to support countries across the continent, to ensure the continuous production of food and also with the provision of quality certifies seeds and inputs for the smallholders to ensure the continuous production of food for the 2022 and 2023 season,” she revealed.
According to the AfDB Senior Agribusiness Officer, upon the request from the Government of The Gambia, they had to intervene because The Gambia is a strategic partner for the AfDB which is why they had to step in to support the country to urgently meet its food production for 2022 and 2023.
