By Awa Sowe
Having reaffirmed Government’s commitment to the attainment of food and nutrition security, sustainable socio-economic growth, and shared prosperity, the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA), Mr Mod Secka, has disclosed that his Ministry is in the process of rolling out a pilot dairy farm project from early 2024, as part of the agriculture transformation agenda aimed at promoting the creation of jobs and wealth, as well as the improvement of food and nutrition security.
Mr. Mod Secka made the announcement during a joint monitoring mission to intervention sites of the six active agriculture projects being executed under the Ministry of Agriculture and implemented by the Central Projects Coordinating Unit (CPCU), responsible for overseeing the implementation of all agricultural projects in The Gambia.
He called on beneficiaries of livestock pasture/feed gardens provided by SRPEP to ensure the proper management of sites as well as to scale up production to improve the availability of livestock feed in order to reduce farmers’/herders’ conflict.
The team visited 28 intervention sites supported by various projects including the World Bank-funded Gambia Inclusive and Resilient Agricultural Value Chain Development Project (GIRAV), Islamic Development Bank-funded Small Ruminant Production Enhancement Project (SRPEP), the Rice Value Chain Transformation Programme (RVCTP), the African Development Bank (AfDB) funded Gambia Agriculture and Food Security Project and the AfDB / BADEA funded Regional Rice Value Chain Development Project (RRVCDP), and the Resilience of Organisations for Transformative Smallholder Agriculture Project (ROOTS), which is co-funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), OPEC Fund for International Development, GEF Least Developed Countries Fund, the French Development Agency (AFD) and the Government of The Gambia.
During the sessions, farmers expressed gratitude to the Government through the Ministry of Agriculture, and implementing agencies of the projects for the life-changing interventions. They explained that because of the support being provided by the projects in the form of free seed and subsidised ploughing services and fertilizer, they have been motivated to increase the areas utilised to cultivate rice, maize, cowpea, and groundnuts, and expressed optimism for a bumper harvest. They, however, singled out limited and timely access to ploughing and threshing machines as a major challenge and appealed for support from the government.
Mr .Secka expressed appreciation of the crops performance as well as the implementation status of other sub-projects. He encouraged farmers to reserve their own seeds for the next cropping season from their produce, adding that project interventions are time-bound.
He also enjoined the Regional Governors to also promote the adoption and production of climate-resilient crops on a large scale, in order to contribute to increased agricultural production and productivity.
