By Abdoulie Nyockeh
Group of livestock dealers through their umbrella body of the National Livestock Owners Association has called on the Gambia government to help reopen weekly markets locally known as “Lumo”.
The association made this call during a press conference during the weekend at its offices in Brikama.
Modou Sowe, the association’s secretary general said the closure of the weekly markets has drastically affected the livestock farmers.
“As farmers, we promised to maintain the tariff at the market in term of meats and milk among others activities that will greatly help the consumers to have access to meats and other products,” he said.
He added: “the government needs to know that without the ‘lumos,’ the main market (Abuko) will not be functional as expected.”
According to him, without the weekly markets the public will not have access to meat and other livestock products.
“Based on this fact we are appealing to government to consider the plight of the farmers in re-opening of the ‘lumos,’ so that the farmers will be able to sell their livestock and also the dealers will be able to go to the ‘lumos’ and get the livestock to sell. We also want the government to understand that support has been going around but we at livestock farmers we need more support,” he said.
He said almost all sectors are expressing their feeling and consideration has been observed except the livestock sector, adding “we need support from government to give to the livestock sector to enable farmers to revive our businesses.”
Lamin Darboe, secretary general of Gambia Livestock dealers association (GALDA), alleged that the government has reduced restriction on the other local markets to operate but hasn’t do the same for the livestock markets.
He said as farmers we deem it necessary to appeal to government so that the livestock markets will re-open. He said there are 29 markets nationwide only three are operational within the greater Banjul Area.
Ebrima O Jallow, president of NALOA said the closure has caused negative impact on the livestock value chain, adding “farmers are facing so many difficulties at domestic level due to the closure of the livestock markets.”
He however added: “We as the voice of the farmers are appealing to government to consider the plight of the farmers to re-open the ‘lumos’ across the country. We all know that covid-19 has caused a lot of devastating effect on our economic and the livestock is not exceptional.”
