By SulaymanWaan
The Gambia government has announced plans to impose moratorium on importation of onions in the country to help boost the markets for local producers.
About six hundred and twelve (612) metric tons of onions have been produced by local producers for public consumption, the officials said.
Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, minister for women, children and social welfare, Fatou Kinteh- Sanyang said: “the government is ready to make sure there will be a moratorium at the time. So that there will be no onion importation at the time.”
She noted that the moratorium will be imposed during the onion season in the Gambia to ensure local producers have good market, adding that after the season in the country government will lift the suspension for business people to import the foreign onions .
She described the decision as significance saying it will help strengthen public-private relationship.
“It will also promote commercial farming in the country, whenever the women know that there are business people who are ready to buy more local products they will cultivate large scale,” she said.
According to her, commercial agriculture will also provide employment and enhance economic empowerment for women and young people as well as ensure nutrition security in the society.
Meanwhile, she called on all business people to support and empower the local producers, specially the women to ensure they produce more food stuff in the country.
She however recalled the women gardener especially onion producers have been encountering serious marketing challenges since the deceleration of the State of Public Emergency.
She added: “this has affected businesses at all time in The Gambia, especially the market of agricultural products. The majority of these producers are women.”
She said as result of these challenges of gardeners’ government collected data on the availability of onion in the country, adding the survey revealed that the country has 612 metric tons of onions in West Coast, Lower River, North Bank and Central River Regions.
She assured that government will visit women gardeners to know their constraints in order to put mechanisms in place to address those challenges so that more onions would be produce in the future.
Abdoulie Jammeh, deputy permanent secretary at the ministry of Trade Integration and Employment said the local producers have the capacity to produce sufficient onions for the country.
