Dr. Ousman Gajigo, Economist and formerly with ADB
By Dr. Ousman Gajigo
This past weekend, 8th March was International Women Day. The fact this day falls in the middle of the vegetable growing season provides an important opportunity to demonstrate a real appreciation of the important role of women in our economy. In the Gambia today, more than 90% of the vegetable production and marketing are done by women. Yet this horticultural sector remains highly neglected.
The Gambia is in the paradoxical situation of the country being highly suitable for vegetable cultivation yet the prices of vegetables remain extremely high and the supply is inadequate. Indeed, we import a large quantity of different kinds of vegetables that can be grown locally. A case in point is onion. Onions are imported from as far away as Holland. Despite the ridiculous claim by the information minister, Dr. IsmaelaCeesay, its prices remain extremely high. Yet, the Gambian soil is highly suitable for this vegetable and yields can rival that of almost any country.
Onion is not the only vegetable that can be grown efficiently in the country. The list is long and it includes vegetables such as tomatoes, bitter tomatoes, eggplant, cabbage, carrot, lettuce, pepper and several others. Yet, the prices of most of these vegetables are high. The reason for the unaffordable price is the limited supply due to the numerous constraints faced byvegetable growers.
Lack of access to water is one of the major constraints faced by women growing vegetables. Most vegetable growing takes place during the dry season, which makes irrigation a necessity. Yet, there are large number of villages where women still draw water manually from wells. This back-breaking work should not be acceptable in this day and age where borehole drilling is available.
Even the village gardens lucky enough to boreholes do not often have sufficient water for their vegetables. Indeed, in many villages with boreholes, watering is done on an alternate basis, which means that those who are lucky to water their plants today would often not get the chance to water their vegetables the following day so as to give chance to others.
Another major problem that women vegetable growers face is the lack of protection from free ranging animals, particularly cattle and goats. Domestic animals are allowed to roam freelyduring the dry season, which poses serious problems for horticultural farmers. Without adequate fencing, all the hard work that goes into growing vegetables is often lost to these animals.
Even if a farmer is lucky to successfully grow vegetables and harvest them, there is yet another problem of marketing. This does not necessarily mean the problem of selling per se. Rather, the prices that these farmers get from selling their vegetable produce can be extremely low when there is a large number of other farmers selling at the same time. This problem happens because there is no appropriate storage for them. If there were storage spaces, low prices from bumper harvests would not be a problem and others can delay selling their produce. This would be beneficial not only for the farmers but also for consumers as it would lengthen the availability of vegetables over time.
This lack of storage may not be a major problem for some vegetables such as onion, which can be kept at room temperature for weeks. But it is a major problem for tomatoes and some other vegetables. At this very moment, there are tonnes of tomatoes that get spoiled from gardens across the country due to lack of proper storage spaces. In fact, there are currently many vegetable farmers forced to sell tomatoes at very low prices because of their inability to safely store them.Addressing storage is important not only for marketing but alsofor health reasons. The growth of germs is inhibited when vegetables are stored in low temperature.
Another major problem that women gardeners face includes key inputs such as seeds, fertilizers and pesticides. It is a common occurrence for farmers to buy seeds that do not germinate simply because the sellers do not store them well. Fertilizer prices outside of the rainy season are prohibitively high and pesticide prices are even higher. The inadequate availability of these inputs affects the quantity and quality of vegetables on the market. Another important role of the government is to help introduce new seeds varieties that are more resilient and suited to our environment. For instance, the only onion varieties available in The Gambia can only be grown during the dry season but there are now onion varieties available in other countries that can be grown in the rainy season but they have not been introduced to our vegetable farmers. Such an introduction would make a big difference for not only women farmers but the whole country.
None of the foregoing problems are unknown to authorities. So, one may ask why does these problems still persist. Is it because these problems are too costly to address? At the level of the village, the cost of addressing fencing, irrigation and storage is too high. However, it is very affordable at the level of government to address these problems.
It is not difficult to estimate the monetary value of the financing that is needed for the essential infrastructure such as irrigation, fencing and storage. To get a better understanding of this problem, I went around the country a few years ago to estimate how many communal gardens are there in the country. In 2022, there were approximately 160 vegetable gardens that were communal and reach at least 1 hectare in size. The average size of these gardens was about 3 hectares, with about 300 farmers on average per settlement working on them.
Based on current prices, the total estimated financing cost for addressing the irrigation, fencing and storage problems of all thecommunal vegetable gardens in the country would be less than D500 million. This amount is less than a quarter of the recurrent budget that the government is spending on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the 2025 budget. This is a perfect example of the government not putting our resources where they are needed. After all, why would the government spend so much money on unnecessary embassies when our farmers are struggling without the needed assistance for an activity that is critical to our economy?
Addressing the problems in vegetable production would address both food security and poverty. The food security part is obvious because vegetables constitute a significant component of our food consumption and expenditures. Adequate vegetable production that is not prohibitively expensive and difficult would free many rural households from need to buy them and instead grow their food. Growing fresh produce would be far healthier than alternatives that are often consumed.
Vegetable production is also a surefire way to reduce poverty. As vegetable growing becomes less strenuous and free fromback-breaking work, more will be produced at low cost. This means that the price of vegetables will become lower and more affordable to other households, thereby reducing the unbearably high cost of living. The increased production of vegetables at a lower cost would also set the stage for future processing. After all, there can be no agro-processing unless there is a reliable supply of high-volume and low-cost agricultural produce.
It can also reduce youth unemployment because reducing the barriers to vegetable cultivation will enable many youths to venture into this form of agriculture. Many Gambians run away from agricultural activities because it traditionally represents toiling under the hot sun for little gain. However, when infrastructural problems are addressed, horticultural activities can easily become high-return activities and become as attractive to the youths as almost any emerging industry.
Greater production of vegetables locally would also free the country from the need to import. Each year, the country spends millions of dollars importing onions and many other vegetables that can be cultivated locally. This high level of imports adds to the devaluation pressures on our currency, leading to higher and higher inflation.
What needs to be done to solve the agricultural challenges, particularly in the horticultural sub-sector, is well known. The solution is also highly feasible. What is missing is the will and the capacity to do it, which is lacking in this current government. implementing those solutions will show a real appreciation and seriousness in addressing problems faced by Gambian women – far more than the empty statements released by the typical politician who does not set foot in a village gardentrying to commemorate the International Women’s Day.