Fatou Samba, an Adviser to the National Women Farmers Association has hailed government for its timely intervention in distributing farming machinery to rural women farmers across the country.
Madam Samba was speaking during minister of agriculture Amie Fabureh’s visit to Ngain Sanjal mix-farming training center.
Minister of agiculture last week ended a five week days nationwide tour in distributing power tillers, rice trashing machines and milling machines as she handed over thirty communities in rural Gambia.
Minister Fabureh said the gesture is from the President in response to the plights of the rural women farmers, most of whom continues to use physical activity to pound their cereals incurring lots of sufferings during the process.
“Am very delighted with the intervention of the government through the ministry of agriculture for distributing these materials to the rural women. We are all aware of the sufferings of the rural women in putting food on their tables and most of their activities is based on the use of mortar and pestle and without doubt, this timely intervention by the government and ministry of agriculture will go a long way in improving the lives of the rural women farmers” said NWFA Adviser.
She observes that government intervention to providing these machineries will not only alleviate the sufferings of the rural women but as well the rural men who also shares a fraction of the suffering of the women, adding that this intervention will also improve the feeds of many families in the rural areas who depends on machines from neighboring countries to do trashing and milling for them.
“This intervention will improve the feeds of many families who pays for the services of trashing and milling machines from Senegal. Many families use to make their payments with their grains but with these machines this is now thing of the past,” Fatou Samba, disclosed.
“The coming of these machines will also reduce post-harvest loses either in the fields or in the store, this will decrease the feeding pressures vested in the hands of the men in the communities. It will also decrease doggery on women who usually embarks on more domestic works when they close work from the fields and increase life expectancy among the rural women.”
Samba described the gesture as timely, disclosing that now that most of the women are done with their farming activities they can easily trash and mill their grains without much troubles, advising that the beneficiary communities should form committees that will be responsible for the running and maintenance of the donated machines for sustainability purposes.
“I want to call on the beneficiaries to judiciously use these machines so that by the time they have problem, there can be resources to do their maintenance or possibly have the needed resources to buy new one for themselves. When these machines are effectively utilize it will have a significant impact on the livelihood of the rural women farmers” National Women Farmers Association, Adviser observed.
