Amid rising inflation, Gambia’s Trade Minister, Baboucarr O. Joof annonced that his ministry will be teaming up with some public institutions to support local farmers with the view to boosting food production.
He made this revelation during a presser held Monday at the ministry of trade’s conference hall in Banjul.
“As a government wide approach to addressing the issue of prices hike, we are working very closely with the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Finance and the Food Security Processing & Marketing Corporation to support local farmers,” he said.
He then seized the opportunity to laud MA Kharafi for pushing ahead with food sovereignty agenda.
“We have to grow what we eat,” he voiced out.
According to him, Mkay Agro Farms has started supplying the market with local onions and the Farm is expecting to produce 4,000 MTs this year from 2,500 MTs last year.
As importations are still going on, Trade Minister further stated that Mak-Food is also expecting to harvest 1,500MTs which would be in the market around the March, 2024.
Another major stakeholder in the agro-business industry is BAKAF which is expected to reach 2,500 MTs of onions this year.
He then went on to say that BAKAF would begin supplying the market around the first week of March 2024.
“The three farms are expected to produce a total of 8,500 MTs of onions this year” he said. “In addition to the industrial farms, the women onion producers across the country are also expecting to start their harvest and supply the market by mid-March 2024.”
A similar trend is also prevailing in potatoes production as Mak-Food production totaled 6,000MTs of potatoes this year which is an improvement over 4,500MTs from last year harvest.
“The farm will start supplying the market around 15th March 2024,” he indicated.
