By: Nyima Sillah
The Chief of Jarra West, Alhagie Yahya Jarjusey, has urged Gambia government to actualize the new cooperative policy.
“The reason why cooperatives are not functioning in the right ways is because there is nothing in place to make the cooperatives function. The liquidation of the cooperative is almost 20 years. We have been making efforts for the government to establish a new cooperative that will operate in line with the government and also to work with the Gambia Groundnut Cooperation (GGC) to achieve their goal,” Chief claimed.
He added that “This is the weakness of the government in working on the new policy because, from the liquidation of the cooperatives, they could not establish a policy.”
The Head of Jarra West asserted that the farmers have been lobbying the government to formulate a cooperative policy to guide cooperatives’ operations, as they had also engaged the Minister of Agriculture on the issue.
“This is something that should be done within a year, is now that the Gambia is seeing that cooperatives should work because if it works, it will ease the work of the Gambia Groundnut Corporation and with farmers,” Chief Jarjusey intimated The Voice during farmers’consultative forum at Jenoi on Thursday.
Chief Jarjusey pointed out that the new cooperative policy framework is long overdue, adding that the previous cooperative was a union that the former government liquidated.
“We need action not only talking, the government should go and have a dialogue with farmers and see all the structures with which the (GGC) and the farmers can all be at the same level. Gambians are good at talking not implementing, adding this new policy will help the cooperative to operate in line with democracy because cooperatives are formed by democracy, and the people working there should be elected by the farmers,” he stated.
Chief recalled that when the cooperative was liquidated by President Yahya Jammeh (former), they did not have a bigger cooperative that would work in line with cooperatives to make them actively functional.
According to him, with or without regulations, there must be buying and selling of groundnuts. And that people cannot cultivate groundnuts without a place to buy them, as cooperative owners do the selection of people to control the selling of groundnuts for them without limitations.
“Lack of cooperation has hindered the work of farmers since the authority they should have to make their cooperatives function is not with them and no benefits for them because the right people to control it are not in place,” Chief lamented.
However, Chief Jarjusey appealed to government to empower the agriculture sector not only with groundnut because of its seasonal nature, but also with other seedlings to diversify farming activities. He also encouraged farmers to sell their groundnuts to (GGC) to boost the economy of the country as part of domestic revenue generation.