Already the West African country has set in train mechanisms that would counter contingency liabilities of the crisis by preparing a report that identifies food, seed and farm inputs deficit for the upcoming 2012 cropping season – a measure that would likely reduce the degree of the coming famine.
Government intends to start in earnest a seed multiplication program for the main food and cash crops, and provide general relief food distributions to the entire farming population particularly those in the hardest hit regions and districts.
The country says it is difficult for the government to make provisions for the magnitude of the impending crisis if the international community and NGOs do not intervene to salvage the situation; thus making it possible for thousands lives to live by less than three meals a day.
“While food stocks in some of the major markets/areas are still at an acceptable level, price increases are progressively becoming a severe strain on the incomes of poor households and hence their access to food,” an impeccable source explains.
Already the average market price of agricultural commodities is taking an upward swing. As at the second week of March the kilo of Maize and Sorghum in Banjul stands at D18 whilst Millet and local rice hang at D15.78 and D24.5 respectively.
“The resources urgently needed to realize [... a hunger free nation] is well beyond what the national capability can guarantee and thus our resort to ask for external help from our friends and development partners [becomes necessary],” the agriculture ministry says.
The West African country needs foreign assistance with funds amounting to about six hundred and ninety million Gambian Dalasi (US$23) to save its 1.8 million people, three quarter of which live under the breadline.
The magnitude of the crisis, which will seemingly be felt by poor communities in rural Gambia, has already started to show its ugly face local communities: hoarding is fast becoming the order of the day, whilst many people have begun to look for new avenues to eke out a living.
These local communities, who are dependent on rainfall, are made more vulnerable by below normal and poorly distributed rainfall, which indicated a reduction in total crop production of more than 70%.
However, while the rural population anticipates the coming famine and are beginning to run helter-skelter to keep their heads above water, the government on the other hand is mobilising all available emergency funds for immediate action to assist the most affected.
“I have two options as a farmer: to sell my sheep and go to the city to find a job before the raining season starts, or sell one of my cows and buy enough provisions and stay with the family,” Muahamed Baldeh, a resident of Sare Fally in the Central River Region (CRR) told this reporter during a telephone conversation.
Baldeh, whose wife prefers him to stay put in the provinces, says even if he should go, the issue of selling the goat or the cow in the long run is inevitable.
“This is because I cannot amass enough to cater for the entire family,” he says.
Some of the people who have realised bumper harvest in millet have already started hoarding their produce for rainy days. “They do not want to go to the market and sell their commodities at this time of the year; they want to wait until when commodities of that type become rare and expensive, then they kill us with an very expensive price.”
The poor harvest impacts is made worst by skyrocketing global food prices, which is severely affecting under-privileged farming communities.
“This poor harvest is also exacerbated by the soaring world food prices, which in turn have resulted in the rapid depletion of household incomes,” a release from the agriculture ministry states.
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