MENDING THE DENT IN OUR AGRICULTURAL SYSTEM

The latest farming season crop failure in The Gambia and the apt appeal for assistance by the Gambia government has sparked some unprecedented responses from donor agencies, individuals, NGOs and private sector players to extend a helping hand to the government and farmers in the country in order to mitigate the impending food shortage and rise in food prices that hang over the head of the nation. In as much these interventions are highly needed to mitigate the looming food crisis in the country, and we would like to profoundly thank and commend all those who have rendered assistance for their invaluable aid to our national food crisis, we want to say that our current rain-fed agricultural system has grown rapidly inadequate and unreliable in meeting our food demand and land productivity. Rain-fed agriculture will not reliably do the work for us. We have to graduate from rain-fed agriculture to irrigated agriculture so that we can have all-year round crop production. It will be difficult for The Gambia to attain food self-sufficiency under the country’s current state of food production, which is based on rain-fed agriculture. While the rest of the world has availed itself of scientific advances to triple its food production, Africa’s output is stagnating. It imports more food than it grows and three quarters of its farmland is degraded. With the price of basic foods such as maize, wheat and rice increasing on a daily basis, millions of people around the world are suddenly facing a very bleak tomorrow. The money in their pockets is not enough to purchase the same quantity of food as before. Each day of their lives they are struggling to fill their stomachs. Gambian farmers heavily rely on rainfall for crop production and the pattern of rain is now becoming more and more erratic due to the climate change phenomenon.

Irrigated agriculture, which permits for all-year round crop production, is the answer many agriculturalists have attested to the fact that The Gambia can feed herself sooner rather than later when this method of food production is operationalised. The development of irrigation would provide the basis to develop a productive, sustainable and diversified agriculture, to achieve the desired food self-sufficiency and the development of a rice-based export-oriented agriculture, and to increase the foreign exchange earning capacity of the country. “To put the rice situation in The Gambia in its proper perspective, there is need to appreciate that available data indicate there is sufficient land to expand production to the level required for the attainment of food self-sufficiency,” said Malcolm Duthie, former World Food Agriculture representative to The Gambia, has said “However, because of the predominantly subsistence rain-fed production system, increased rice production and productivity has been severely constrained by the vagaries of the climate.”

Rain-fed agriculture is more risky now because of the consistent onset of late rains. Some times there is a decline in rainfall in the middle of the season, an early end to the season or end-of-season drought, increased variability in annual rainfall, and an increased frequency of intensive rainfall and runoff, resulting in severe floods. “The Gambia imports most of her food requirements, particularly grains, and produces not more than 20% of its rice requirement, which makes it very vulnerable to rise in prices and reduction in supplies from the international market as the country depends heavily on importation.” Mr Duthie says. He notes: “There is a need to improve the country’s agricultural production. The country should therefore promote more non-rainfall agriculture, because one of the problems in the past years has been reliance on the weather and farmers can’t do much because the weather does not corroborate some times.” This is the simple message of Abba Sankareh, Director of Planning Unit at the Ministry of Agriculture, quoted in one of our lead articles. Non-rainfall agriculture means boosting irrigation, better management of agriculture and other appropriate mechanisms. Let’s, therefore, apply it, to mend the dent in our agricultural system.