The World Bank on Wednesday launched the gender In Agriculture Sourcebook, the product of a three-year collaborative effort with the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), and the International Fund or Agricultural Development (IFAD).

Through case studies and best practices, the sourcebook addresses the development reality that persists in under investment in women and agriculture together with gender disparities in knowledge, technology access to credit, and land result in less food being grown, less being earned, higher levels of poverty, and greater food security.
According to Katherine Sierra, Vice president, Sustainable Development at the World Bank, the World Bank is determined to address the funding imbalance. “The World Bank’s goal is that at least half our agriculture and rural development projects include investments and activities that benefit women by 2010, she said.

“This shift in investment is critical. We are seeing evidence that women are among the most affected by the current food crisis, “said Eija Pehu of the Agriculture and Rural Development of the world Bank and Team leader for the Sourcebook. “They often lack the assets, income, and decision making authority to respond to the increase in food prices,” she said.

In addition the knowledge for practitioners, the sourcebook speaks to policymakers with recommendations to increase analytical work on gender in agricultural programs, to strengthen female representation in public and private institutions, and to invest more in developing the capacity of women farmers through education and skills formation.” “The eradication of hunger and rural poverty simply cannot be achieved without equal opportunities for men and women and without economic empowerment,” said FAO Director General Jacques Diouf.

The Sourcebook also calls for strengthening property rights, assets ownership, and access to financial services for women. We have seen how income generating activities and microfinance directed towards women, very often organized in self-help groups, can produce virtual miracles, said Lennart Bage, president of IFAD.

The sourcebook contains detailed case studies and over 300 highlighted projects sharing gender mainstreaming knowledge on a range of development interventions in agriculture from rural infrastructure to education.

At a briefing today a panel of experts from FAO, IFAD, the World Bank, and the International Food policy Research Institute (IFPRI) highlighted the potential impact of shifting resources. If women farmers had the same access to inputs, education and experience as their male counterparts in Kenya, for example, their yields for maize, beans, and cowpeas could increase as much as 22 percent. A change like this would have resulted in a one-time doubling of Kenya’s GDP growth rate in 2004 from 4.3percent to 8.3 percent.

Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika has pledged to embark on a "green belt" programme to enable the country, in the long run, to say goodbye to hunger and international food aid.

"Malawi appeals to the G-8 countries to support us to create a green belt around our lakes and along our rivers to irrigate land up to 20 kilometres from the shores. The Malawi government plans to grow a lot of rice, wheat, maize, millet, cassava, potatoes and beans for the local and international market," he told the United Nations General Assembly recently.

Mutharika, who is also Malawi's minister of agriculture and food security, has been applauded for using a subsidy programme for fertiliser and seed to boost local production. In 2005/06 the full US $50 million price tag was met by the government as donors sat on the sidelines.

"The green belts, if implemented, would help us harvest crops all year round, thereby curbing any food shortages that haunted the country in the past. We have been blessed with abundant water resources, which can be used to make the green belts programme work," Mutharika told reporters in the capital, Lilongwe, last month.

The green belts would stretch from Karonga, a town in the extreme north, near the border with Tanzania, to Nsanje, a town on the Shire River on the southern border with Mozambique.

Up to 90 percent of cultivated crops are rain-fed, but Malawi had numerous irrigation schemes along Lake Malawi and the Shire Valley. Many ground to a halt when the dictatorship of Hastings Kamazu Banda collapsed in 1994, partly because they were linked to his former ruling Malawi Congress Party's paramilitary wing, the Malawi Young Pioneers.

The new green belts initiative is likely to cover some of these irrigation programmes, most of which are either lying idle or underutilised. The government will also assist smallholder farmers establish their own irrigation schemes along Lake Malawi - Africa's second largest lake - to grow rice and maize.

Need for commitment

Billy Banda, executive director of Malawi Watch, a social justice advocacy group, said the green belt idea was long overdue. Because of low output on insufficient land, over a third of farmers cannot produce enough and have to sell their labour for part of the year to buy food on the market.

"There has to be political will to make this dream come into reality. Secondly, all Malawians should support the initiative without necessarily looking for outside intervention, because as a country we have all the resources to implement this ambitious initiative," Banda said.

A report by Christian Aid, an international non-governmental organisation, Fighting Food Shortages, Hungry for Change, cited failure by past governments to invest in small-scale irrigation as one of the reasons some families in Malawi face hunger.

"Climate change may be adding to people's food insecurity: long dry spells in the middle of the growing season are becoming common; floods at the same time of year destroy crops, but the biggest problem is the failure by government to tackle root causes of the farmers' problems," the report noted. For instance, policy continued to focus on maize even though this crop is extremely sensitive to water shortages.

Government has since acknowledged the risk of a major food crisis by considering the purchase of weather derivatives – a financial instrument backed by the World Bank - which means that if the country's rainfall dips below a certain level then it will get a pay-out.

IRIN 

Eighteen Gambian students who were granted the International Cooperation Development Fund (ICDF) of Taiwan scholarships left for Taipei on Sunday, to undertake different programmes at various universities in Taiwan.

According to official reports, this year’s package include masters programme in clinical medicine, public health, nursing, MBA in technology management, masters programme in information systems and applications, graduate programme in agricultural policy development and management, masters programme in tropical agriculture, industrial engineering and management and business administration.

At a recent orientation held at the Taiwanese Embassy, Ambassador Richard Shih congratulated the students for winning the scholarships, which were awarded to successful applicants after a rigorous assessment of one’s academic aptitude and records by a panel at ICDF Headquarters in Taipei.

"This is a great achievement for all of you. It is not easy, but because of your hard work, you were given the scholarships," Ambassador Shih told the students, but emphasized that the credit should be given to President Alhaji Dr Yahya Jammeh, for laying a solid foundation for Gambians to benefit from the scholarship programmes.

"The Gambia and Taiwan are close partners. We live with each other and work with each other," he said.

The ambassador reminded the students of their responsibilities to The Gambia, urging them to work harder and return to the country at the end of their academic programmes in order to contribute more effectively to national development.

He described Taiwan as a beautiful country with a population of 23 million people. Taiwan is approximately three times bigger than The Gambia and 90 per cent of her population lives along the West coast, owing to her geographical realities.

These days we often hear about a few Gambians here and there venturing into areas formally left on explored.

For instance, the 'back-to-the-land' call made by President Jammeh is increasingly gaining momentum, especially among people in the government circles. However, what has not been commonly heard of is the participation of the youth in the area of agriculture. But one such person that is out to change that outlook is Abubacarr Demba.
 
A youth in his mid twenties, Mr Demba hails from Mandina, a village in Kiang West (LRR). Currently totally engrossed with his work as a farmer, this young man matched into the offices of the Daily Observer the other day, to raise concern about the menace of bush fire.

'Every year,' he said, 'people set fire deliberately and it is becoming a concern to me as I an environmentalist.' His aim, he said, is to set up a green belt rather than to destroy nature.

Demba wants government to look in to the issue of bushfire, arguing that nature needed to be protected. He further argued that there was a ‘sycronized cordination between nature and the patterns of climate change,’ noting that if government could pass a law restricting the activities of people who deliberately commit this act of burning the natural forest, it would build on the income generating capacity of the low income earners, as well as partly solving the debate surrounding Global warming.

'Apart from women getting in to the forest and collecting natural foodstuffs  for sale in the local market, a great chunk of the rural folks derive their food from the forest directly. Setting fire on our bushes will greatly affect domestic animals who, in fact, suffered most. Besides, all this affect the health of the people and contribute to global warming as well,' Demba argues.

For him when trees are burnt down, the aftermath is excess heat, which has extensive implications. Government, he said, can look in to these issues; 'our legislatures need to work a lot in the parliament to ensuring the prevention of these happenings.'

Mr Demba also finds it puzzling as to why people burn down the bush, and in his continued quest to know, the responses he often come by leave him even more perplexed. While some would point at traditional belief trend, either because their parents or some relation had done so, some time ago; for others it appears as total ignorance.

Here he told youth matters why he decided to take to the land. ‘In 2002, I decided to go back to the land as a youth, to set an example.’ What is so significant about that land mark decision of this young man is that he decided to retire home despite the fact that he is a professional in so many skills; artswork, painting and drafting designs, as well as carpentry, yet non of these profession would demand as much wealth in that part of the country as they would here in the urban set up.

As a victim of babylon syndrome, which had taken him away for four (4) solid years, the impact of his experience would not allow him to keep a low profile.

On his return home, his only task was to join effort in answering to the president's call of going back to the land, as a way of dissuading his comtemporaries. 'My father is from the village in Kiang; despite not been born or brought up there, I still feel proud to be working there as a farmer. And I feel even more proud that I am cultivating what I can use to feedmyself', he lamented.

Demba is quite aware of the fact that youths of his age nowadays would not like any one to tell them about staying put in the country but, he argues, they contribute less in their homes, 'as they live from hand to month and, in most cases, entirely dependent on other people.'
And he went on,'The land is in abundance; when you dig the soil, you work hard, you will gain something.' 

He hailed President Jammeh for his worthwhile demonstration of ‘leadeship by example. My advice for those that are burning the bush is that they stop it now in one way or the other,' he acknowledge that some of them might be ignorant of it, but that if we start telling about it now, sensitising the people about the dangers, it might make the difference. 'In fact, if you burn the bush it affect your yield, as the vegetation influence rainfall,' he concludes.

The author of this article wishes to thank His Excellency the President, Alhaji Dr Yahya AJJ Jammeh for his call for people to go back to the land, a way of encouraging farmers to reform agriculture in The Gambia.

The objective of this article is therefore to raise awareness on the importance of agriculture to the Gambian public, particularly our young Gambians in schools. They are the future leaders and farmers of The Gambia, a developing and agricultural country in West Africa.

During the pre-independence period in The Gambia, very little or no emphasis was placed on Agricultural Education.  More emphasis was laid on learning what was known as reading, writing and Arithmetic than on work-orientated subjects like Agriculture.

The Gambia government, realising the agrarian nature of the country and the importance of agriculture in The Gambia’s economy, has put a strong argument in favour of agricultural education in schools through School Farms and Gardens of which I was one of the pioneers. 

I actively participated in the 1985/86 Dakar UNESCO Workshops on the “Integration of Productive Work in our Educational Programmes” held in Lome and Porto Novo in Togo and Benin respectively.  The development of practical agricultural teaching in our schools was then recommended and later, the establishment of the School Farms and Garden Project for the Gambian schools was initiated.

Agricultural Education should therefore be given its rightful place in The Gambia School Curriculum.  Agricultural Education for schools is a life-long process whereby the younger generation is prepared for life in their own socio-cultural and economic environment. 

The Gambian society is largely agricultural ad large numbers of the youth who have been to Primary and Secondary schools leave the countryside in search of work and a bette life in towns and cities which are already glutted with unemployment. 

The acquisition of agricultural sector in The Gambia should be the main source of food as well as export earning.  More than two-thirds of the country’s population derive their living from agriculture.

The following questions will help us to come out with suggestions and answers on this important topic to find a way out of the farming problems confronting our adult farmers, mainly caused by negative attitudes towards agricultural production. 

As a result of this, it is being suggested that we focus on young Gambians in schools in order to replace these negative attitudes with positive attitudes in our future farmers who are now in the school system.

•Are young Gambians in schools able to define the term “Agriculture” and its importance to the Gambian people?
•Do students know the role and efforts the Gambia Government is making including the concerns of the public in agricultural development, especially in food production?

•Do students understand the difference between subsistence and commercial farming among the farming systems?  Why are the majority of Gambian farmers poor?
•Why is it necessary to focus on young Gambians in schools for The Gambia’s agricultural development?

As school gardening is a part of agriculture practiced in schools, young Gambians in Lower and Upper Basic and Senior Secondary Schools should therefore, understand what agriculture is and its importance to the people.

“Agriculture” includes the arts, sciences and industries utilized by man to obtain food.  Agriculture includes not only the production to plants and animals useful to man but also many of the operations involved in marketing them, as well as some of the service industries, sullying machinery and material used in farm production.  Agriculture has an important place in our economy.

Farming in agriculture is very important.  It is the world’s greatest industry.  About 75% of the population in West Africa including The Gambia, spend their lives ploughing the soil, sowing and harvesting crops and raising animals to provide the population with food and many other products.  it is important for young Gambians in schools to know that effective agricultural practices will transform The Gambia to a self-sufficient nation, earn foreign exchange and provide self-employment for our thousands of school leavers after their school career.

Young Gambians in schools should be made to understand the role of government and the public concern in agricultural development because many of these young people will become the future farmers.  Government’s role is very important but must be supported by the public to develop the farmer to become a role model or a pilot farmer.

Government is determined to achieve long term goal for self-sufficiency in food production, an increased domestic production of traditional coarse grains to minimize rice importation in the country.  Priority is also given to irrigated agriculture.  This could be done effectively due to the existence of the River Gambia which provides abundant fresh water. 

The government is also intensifying the development of the horticultural sub-sector for the production of high value fruits and vegetables for export and supply to the expanding tourist industry.  The rational exploitation of our fisheries resources is also being encouraged in order to increase supplies to the tourist industry and to the local population for a major source or protein.

The Ndama cattle in The Gambia is an asset for domestic meat consumption and for export.  The aim of the government is therefore to ensure a sustainable livestock industry to meet domestic meat requirements for the general populace and for the tourist industry. Our students in schools should know that government alone cannot develop agriculture in this country therefore, the role of non-governmental organizations in supplementing government efforts is highly appreciated. 

To name a few, who have made efforts in this area are:WARDA (West African Rice Development Association) Caritas, CRS, Action Aid, St. Joseph’s Family Farm, CCF.  GAFNA, and many others.

The efforts of The Gambia government, as already mentioned, headed by President Jammeh with the supplementary efforts of non-governmental organizations in the country to develop agriculture, is not effective because the majority of Gambian farmers lack interest, motivation and the sense of ownership and accountability in their farming projects, despite all the assistant and encouragement given to them by government.
The problem is that the present adult farmers were not motivated and molded when they were young in their homes in the school system and this has resulted in their not realising the benefits of agriculture and thus developed negative attitudes to faming, thinking that agriculture is an occupation for the poor.

A suggested solution to this problem based on my life-long teaching experience is not only to concentrate on our adult farmers with negative attitudes but to tackle our young Gambians in their homes or in the school system, from selected schools, if not all, to give practical agriculture as a subject, its rightful place in the school curriculum, practically assessed and examined like Mathematics and English.  This will motivate teachers and young Gambians in schools to appreciate and like agriculture as a noble and profitable occupation.

Some members of the public are also concerned about the present attitude of farmers towards agricultural development especially on food production and the food crisis facing the world, to which The Gambia is no exception.  Imam Baba Leigh made some remarks during the Friday congregational sermon on food crisis and poverty published in the Point Newspaper on Monday 28th April 2008. 

An extract of the quotation reads “We in The Gambia have no cause to complain as the country is blessed with a navigable river with fresh water and vast land for cultivation.”  He concluded by emphasizing the need for people to take up agriculture seriously for the betterment of the country.

Students in school should understand  the farming system practiced in their own country if they want to be farmers.  The transformation of subsistence farming which the majority of Gambians are practicing to more productive form of agriculture (Commercial agriculture), requires the development of agriculture through the acquisition of agricultural knowledge and skills in good production.
To be continued

The author who is an agriculture educationist is motivated and had the same idea of promoting agriculture as President Jammeh is doing now.
When he started teaching in 1953, in Bwiam primary school, Foni Kansala, he emphasized the importance of the teaching of practical agriculture to young Gambians.

He is a Gambian who has sacrificed his time and energy, traveling by boat with the Fulladu and Lady wright and over-land to teach in many primary and secondary schools in all parts of the country.

He was also a senior agricultural science education lecturer at The Gambia College and an agricultural science examiner for the West African Examination Council and interacted with young Gambians in mission and government schools.

He worked with Caritas (NGO) on women, village and school garden agricultural programmes; also with crops members at the NYSS Nyaniberi and Sapu rice farms as farm manager, teaching the NYSS youth to acquire agricultural knowledge and skills in crop and animal husbandry.

He has written several agricultural science textbooks for schools, based on his teachings and field-work experience. He is a graduate of Njala University in Sierra leone and Worcester College of Higher Education, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom, specializing in agricultural education.

Among the textbooks written by the author is the “Gardening Guide for Schools on the Production of Vegetables and Fruit trees and an “Agricultural Science” for Senior Secondary Schools and Colleges in West Africa, covering the examination requirements for the West African Council certificate.

The book has 162 pages and is divided into four chapters covering Introduction to Agriculture, Basic Concepts, Soil Science, Crop Science and Animal Science.  The forward of this informative and practical agricultural textbook is written by Alhaji Dr. Yahya A.J.J. Jammeh, President of The Gambia to encourage other Gambians.

Aja Dr Isatou Njie-Saidy, vice president and secretary of state for Women’s Affairs, has called for absolute priority to be given to domestic food production, in order to reduce dependency on the international market.Vice President Njie-Saidy made this remark during the official opening ceremony of a one-day consultative forum on the National Food Security Situation and Response Strategies, held at the Paradise Suites Hotel, yesterday.

She said that predictions from FAO suggest that food prices will remain high for at least the next ten years.  According to VP Njie-Saidy, reports also indicate that The Gambia is one of the most vulnerable countries in the sub-region.  As such, she noted, The Gambia was already facing deficit in food supply before the global grain problem due to its high dependence on rain-fed agriculture, which is both unpredictable and erratic, among other issues.

“We are also aware of the export restrictions in the countries we import rice from, due to the increased demands in those countries.  This confirms the saying that people whose food stores are located outside their borders will forever continue to be vulnerable,” she noted.

In the light of this, she went on to say that it is time to rebuilt national food economies that require immediate and long-term robust strategies and indeed political backstopping. “Peasants and small farmers should be encouraged through better processes and prices for their farm products and stable markets to produce food for themselves and their communities.  Landless families from rural and urban areas have to get access to land, seeds and water to produce their own food.  This means increased investment in peasant and farmer-based food production for domestic markets,” she observed.

She also seized the opportunity to outline government’s belief and conviction that peasants and small farmers can feed the world and should therefore form a key part of the solution. The Gambia government, she added, under President Jammeh’s leadership, is committed to developing the agricultural sector for now and posterity.

The Gambian agricultural sector, VP Njie-Saidy continued, has suffered in recent years from declining production due to adverse weather conditions coupled with a range of other constraints, including weak levels of support. “Using agricultural information collected by the National Agricultural Development Agency (NADA), Department of Planning (DoP) and Concern Universal, analysis was undertaken together with WFP/FAO, in May 2008, which showed that since 2005, total food grain production has declined by 35% for the 2007/2008 harvest.

This has led to a critical situation as, when balanced against needs, and WFP estimates show a widening gap between the local production of food, and the growing consumption needs (increasing due to population growth), Vice President Njie-Saidy revealed.

Agricutural land

“The total agricultural land for The Gambia is put at 1,036,534 hectares and classified into various categories, according to soil suitability.  There are, however, 558,000 hectares considered suitable for agriculture production, covering all the 6 regions.  Of the 320,358 hectares cultivated in 2007, 63.3% was put under cereal production (mostly millet, while 36.7% was put to groundnut production, the main cash crop.  Only 5.2% (16,588 hectares) was put under rice,” she further revealed.

According to the vice president, the general performance of the agricultural sector has been constrained by the following: limited financial resources, inadequate rural infrastructure, lack of sector plans and weak coordination among and within relevant government agencies, parastatals and other stakeholders, limited access to agricultural inputs and markets, low participation by the private sector, and also the level and the different forms of tax.

She indicated that government’s efforts are in line with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP II) and the Vision 2020, and will help to respond to the soaring food prices.

VP Njie-Saidy finally called for concerted efforts in a bid to curb the menace of global food crisis and to attain food self-sufficiency.

Other speakers at the ceremony included Bakary Sonko, director of NADA, Haddijatou Lamin Njie, country director of VSO, The Gambia and Kujejatou Manneh-Jallow, director of ActionAid The Gambia. Babou Jobe, director general of NARI, chaired the ceremony.