Posted by By Halimatou Ceesay
Women garners have appealed to government of The Gambia to come to their aid and find solutions to their problems, particularly market place to sell their produce.
Speaking to this reporter at the Gambia Chamber of Commerce and Industry Trade Fair at the Independence Stadium Bakau, Aji Yamundow Drammeh from Sillah Jurungu, said they have five hectares garden with a water tank, but they are currently facing water shortage, which she said makes their work difficult.
Aji further stated that they have no place to sell their produce apart from the trade fair venue, as their village doesn’t have a market. “My business is based on contacts and sometimes people that like my peanut butter do buy it and this is in fact rare. Despite our village being big but there is not market and it’s far from the city, however if we the government should build us a market, that would be very helpful.”
Haja Tunkara and Fatou Demba from Gambisara also called on the government to help them with a bigger market place, to enable them to sell their produce. Fatou added that they have no water in their gardens as well as proper fence and as a result animals keep destroying their produce which is a big setback for them. She further stated that lack of fertilizers and seedling is a affecting them, adding that their produce especially groundnuts don’t market and they end up producing oil and peanut butter out of it.
“Despite all these challenges women are still willing to work and make a good living. We therefore appeal to the government and its partners to come to our rescue and resolve these problems,” she said.
For her part Nyakassy Mass from Kiang said they currently have no garden to cultivate their produce as the one they had is not in a good condition. “Right now we are in dire need of a Garden and market to sell our produce after harvest, but we are yet to receive any help from anyone.”
“We as women are doing our best working hard every day. We farm during the rainy season and work on our gardens during the dry season and involve in buying and selling, now all we need is for government get us a market to sell our produce”, she said.
We the women of Pakalinding have a big garden with a borehole through a sponsor from an organization called NEMA, and we’ve started working on it, but our main constraint is lack of seedlings, and proper storage to keep our produce to avoid being spoiled, as we have no place to sell them”, said Nyima Fatty.
President of food processers association Jankey Camara of Brikama has also called on the government to allocate them a place to sell their produce hence they couldn’t get the chance to export their well-prepared packaged food to other countries. “Our products are chemical free and very healthy. We would really appreciate it if we have help to sell our produce outside the Gambia” said Jankey.