By Karimatou Jallow
Women gardeners have called on the government to pump more money into the agricultural sector in order to help the country attain its food self-sufficiency.
Hundreds of thousands of Gambians depend on agriculture for living which is one of the backbones of the nation’s economy, and President Barrow has assured his administration commitment to revitalising the agricultural sector for attainable food self-sufficiency.
In a chat with Isatou Jarju, she said “we don’t have taps in our garden which has made it difficult for us because fetching from the well is not easy, it wastes lots of time while you can easily get tired. But if the government can help us with taps in our garden, then the work will become easy for us.”
She said pests and diseases also affect their crops, again called on the government to sponsor them with insecticide because some of it is expensive and they cannot afford them.
“The OIC road project is another challenge we are facing. Because, we are among of those that were told to look for another place. However, if we move from this place, we have no other place to go so government should compensate us by giving us another land because this is where we depend to feed our families,” she explained.
Meanwhile, Fatou Bojang also said that they don’t have enough tools to do their work properly, she said this has been their major problem since the beginning and nobody has ever sponsor them with any tools which she said has made their work uneasy.
“Water is a problem though we have wells but it is not favourable as it is not easy to be fetching water from the well to and fro to wet the big garden,” she said.
“Moreover, agriculture is a good sector because it creates job for the youths. Many youths don’t want to venture into it because the sector is left behind hence there is no enough help from the government. A reason why many people think it is only poor farmers that are involved in garden farming,” she said.