(JollofNews) – “To announce that there must be no criticism of the president… is morally treasonable to the American public.” Theodore Roosevelt
“Without debate, without criticism, no administration and no country can succeed — and no republic can survive” John F. Kennedy.
I am not all criticism. I praise the good, the beautiful, the nice, the true, the right, and the correct, and I criticize their opposites. So, here are my humble suggestions to President Adama Barrow of the Gambia.
Education:Advanced and specialized research university or institute offering graduate studies in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and only accepting the top Gambian STEM undergraduates who are interested in pursuing academic or industrial research.
Goal: To produce brilliant Gambians for research, teaching, technology, and manufacturing and turn the Gambia into a technical knowledge-reliant society that values research and data.
Agriculture:Employment of biotechnology and other agricultural technologies that makes farming or fishing possible in any location or condition and requires sending Gambian agriculturists to countries like Israel, India, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and the United States for training and experience.
Goal: To ensure food security in the Gambia and produce well-trained Gambian agriculturists who can implement both urban and rural agricultural programs for food and employment.
By Alagi Yorro Jallow
The author is founder and former managing editor of The Independent, the Gambia’s only private newspaper before it was banned by the government in 2005. He was a Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy, a 2007 Nieman fellow and is the author of Delayed Democracy: How Press Freedom Collapsed in Gambia published in 2013.
I support a strong and cultural balanced early childhood education with emphasis on our traditional and religious foundation. Our government should invest in training teachers and pay them well and hold them accountable for educating our children. I support a two tier system where some students will proceed to university and others to vocational and trade schools. I agree with special skills in technology and research at higher levels, however my priority is intense early intervention .
Food security and safety should be our goal. I personally prefer small scale farming in huge numbers encouraged by government subsidy. I remain suspicious of advance crop and livestock production because of unintended consequences and my paranoia that developing African nations will become the petri dish for unscrupulous agric conglomerate.
Education and Agriculture will make us truly independent .
God Bless The Gambia
Dont take my word for it, but this is almost a certainly. If Gambia were to muster the courage to bring back the Israelees back into its Agriculture, we should not only be feeding ourselves within 5 to 10 years, but probably the whole region! That is a fact, you can deny it, you can be skeptical about it, but it will happen, and all it takes a the courage to act in the nation’s best interest. Why because Israelees, love them, or hate them, but there is a nation that has not only mastered but perfected arid land Agriculture, she has in fact growing crop without much water at all into a fine art, and has in the past (before africans got addicted to the petro-dollar) been willing to shared its expertise with the countries of the sahel, including Gambia. My agricultural surveying teacher was Israel, we used to have some of the finest agricultural science brains, including Arid Agronomy specialist sent as advisor to the Gambian Department of Agriculture from Israel with no strings attached, and some of our best and brightest science students used to be sent to the Hebrew university to study Agriculture on free scholarships. That was a vibrant an optimistic time for Gambian Science generally, and for Agriculture in particular.
But for the now almost defunct petrodollar, Israel is where we need to go back to for help with the art and science of being, at least, food sufficient – and much more. We could in fact through our courage as a nation, and love of peace bring about peace in the middle-east – and that is not a fantasy too!
We already have NAASA bases in the Gambia – the Yundum airport is a designated Space Shuttle emergency landing Site, or it used to be, so why not have Israel arid Agricultural experimental stations dotted – to our mutual benefit – around our dry, and arid land; why not? The Israel can look after themselves alright, and probably us too in the process, no worries about that!, and as for petro-dollars, we probably would not be needing much of that once we can feed ourselves with a bit, or lots, left over for quick exports, etc!
It pays to take our situation as given and collaborate work with the best out there able and willing to partner us in sustainable development, and not just be docking ships in our (one of the best in the world) deep water, to unload, diabetic causing rice, oil, highly-chemically grown vegetables grown in the poorest soils in southern Europe, or else where that no one will eat, when, with a little expert help, or assistance we can eat fresh, so to speak, and ease the burden on our hospitals cause by eating what.. really, we do not have a clue how, or indeed where it was produced – it just comes in innocent looking white shiny bags – white for innocent. It might not be plastic, but as far as nutrition is concerned, it might as well be – same effect.
This is not having a go at any race or any particular people, it is about protecting one’s self from the worst of the worst of globalisation, which is if you are dirt poor…well, you deserve to…well
eat dirt.. or plastic, if you want to call it that!
So let’s invite the Israel back into our Agriculture, and start eating fresh again. Good solid Arid land diet. Lets start treading a path of neutrality, and start being assertive about our real interests, and not allow ourselves to be back into a corner where we are inhibited or constraint from from taking positive action in our longer term, as opposed to acting in our “the next three months national interest only.
And to always remember that despite all our difficulties today, African remains the only next frontier where to go for certain. There is great uncertainty everywhere else – just as was prophesied by brother Marcus Garvey
In the areas of food security and safety, I do accept that small and medium scale farming do and can continue to be strong contributors to Gambian agriculture.
However, our system of subsistence farming in The Gambia has been plagued with inefficiencies in field crop production and crop technologies that include post harvest handling and marketing. Also African countries on the lower tiers of the economic index do not have the luxury of taking sides in the philosophical debate between academia, environmentalists and globalists. Our primary objective, in the context of our risky food security situation, is to adapt modern farming techniques to fit our circumstances. If Gambian farmers can increase output per hectare through effective techniques, we can see lower food prices that can feed more hungry mouths.
I do not subscribe to the Scandinavian led philosophy that GMO crops, stall fed and confined livestock production and large mechanized operations do not favor developing economies because that is exactly how the Western World, Russia and the BRICS nations are able to attain food security.
Developing economies will be wasting valuable time tinkering with farming systems that do not serve to feed the teeming hungry and underfed populations in Africa, The Gambia and other regions as a matter of urgency. Take this advice from a prominent agriculturist that is actively engaged in production!!
We must also note that generally in Africa, most policy makers in agriculture have never farmed and produced a hectare’s worth of crops other that small controlled research plots. So what can they tell us aside from the theory of crop production!
Gambian youth, with tons of energy, are ready to be engaged in the productive sector. It is our collective responsibility to help them realize the dream that FARMING CAN INDEED BE REWARDING IN THE GAMBIA!
Subsidies are not sustainable in struggling economies albeit that they may be sustainable in Europe and North America!
Indeed Scared!!
Let’s keep on preaching and driving the message home.
Hopefully someone, some people, will someday, sooner rather than later, LISTEN for the benefit of Gambians!!
Alagi Yorro Jallow, a brotherly advice is to work to keep your day job. A bird in hand is a better resource than what’s out of reach.
No need for sales pitches on this forum. Keep smiling.
Well, Andrew, I kept quiet but you got me smiling.
Dida, you remember the Men At Work song that goes, …….Speaka My Language, He Just Smiled and Gave Me a Vegemite Sandwich! Now, here’s reason to keep your smile going. Hahaha!
PS, an homage to the hapless Mzungu Michael Scales. Haha!
See, I’m not an angry young man……..