By Mama A. Touray
Three days after the President delivered his 2025 State of the Nation Address, National Assembly Members on Monday began debating the statement, with some highlighting critical issues they felt the President should have addressed.
While the President highlighted the progress and developments registered in the agricultural sector, the National Assembly Member for Foni Bintang Karanai, Bakary K. Badjie, argued that The Gambia should transform from chemical fertiliser to organic fertiliser.
“We should transform chemical fertiliser to organic fertiliser that will boost our yield and also be of good health to us as a nation, because when you look at chemical fertiliser, last year D580 million was spent on subsidies in terms of chemical fertiliser,” Badjie stated.
Badjie questioned whether the government has the intention to transform from chemical to organic fertilizer, stating that “subsidy is not sustainable, it is not realistic and it’s also faking the soil situation, in reality.”
He argued further that “we cannot revitalize agriculture if we are not introducing agricultural mechanization, so agricultural mechanization is key in agricultural development and without agricultural mechanization how do you want to improve agriculture,” he said.
Meanwhile, the National Assembly Member for Banjul Central Constituency, Abdoulie Njai, also argued that “Year in, year out, we have been pumping in agriculture and agriculture has the highest amount of external projects coming in but still the viability of the sector is still the same.”
Njai added that everything looks good on paper, but when it comes to practical implementation, there is much room for improvement: “we have not seen much going on even though the speech is well articulated and drafted but when it comes to the underground processes and the viability of the sectors they are yet to be seen.”
