By: Fatou Kebbeh
Agriculture plays a major role in the economic growth and development of many nations. For The Gambia, it has been described as the backbone of the country’s economy.
Agriculture employs about 75% of The Gambia’s labour force, the African Development Bank Group says, and it accounts for about 30% of the GDP of the country according to International Trade Administration.
However, what appears to be largely affecting some farmers in The Gambia is inadequate storage facilities. This bottleneck continues to frustrate farmers in Lower Nuimi, incurring them losses they felt could have been averted.
“I have a big challenge in terms of storage facilities. It affects me very well because I cannot save much of my produce, and I mostly lose three-quarters of my produce because of lack of storage,” says one Amadou A Bah, a native of Madina Manneh.
Farming is the main source of income for the people of Amadou’s village in the North Bank Region, located northeast of Kerewan. However, the lack of adequate storage facilities forces them to sell their produce at what Amadou calls a “giveaway price.”
Bah, who has been farming for about 40 years, is now calling on the government and NGOs to come to their aid.
Storage is a key component in agriculture that allows farmers to keep their crops healthy and fresh for marketing, and horticulture, Tom Senghore said.
“Storage in agriculture cannot be overemphasized because without storage farmers can have more than 30 to 40% production losses, storage facilities as we are seeing in other developing countries has been a key contributing factor to more than 25% post-production losses,” Mr Senghore said.
Countries like China, the United States, Russia, etc whose economies greatly rely on agriculture have ensured lack of storage facilities is not the main hindrance.
The Director General of the Department of Agriculture, Dr Saikou E Sanyang has also said storage is an important element in agriculture without which the value chain is always weak.
“We have projects that actually started building storage for farmers, especially vegetable producers. This project actually started with three (3): one in Kaur, North Bank; the other one, URR; and the third one in LRR”.
According to Food and Agriculture (FAO), inadequate storage facilities expose food to deadly bacteria which it says is a major health threat.
The Gambia’s agriculture has been predominantly characterized by subsistence farming. Farmers generally practice mixed farming, where crops account for a greater portion of the production.
The Gambia appears not to be the only country whose farmers bear the brunt of lack of storage, other countries like Nigeria and India suffer from huge post-production losses due to inadequate storage facilities, according to reports.
