It is am indeed pathetic situation people, isn't it? I know we are a third world countyr, but with all fairness we aren`t doing justice to ourselves as far as food self-sufficiency is concerned. Taking a close look at the Budget one would realize that we do spend a lot on food importation alone, which clearly outlines our high dependancy on other countries for more than 50% of food we need and consume on a daily basis.

This dependency attitude has made us so vulnelable because the slightest crisis in global economies of leading nations is nine times out of ten going to have a knock on effect on the prices of basic commodities especially rice.

It's high time we start working on solving the issue of sky-rocketting prices of goods in the Gambia, as it seems to me that nothing is being done to address it, or too little attention is paid to it should i say.

"Therefore, all should heed the call for back to the land, made by the His Excellency, The President, Dr. Alhaji Yahya A. J. J. Jammeh, by simply investing in crop financing of irrigated rice production through the proposed concept of contract/absentee farming operations."

The above is not going to be a solution either am afraid mr Editor.

I beleive that to solve the problem, the government make a close study of the general feeding attitude of the people, what food commodities are consumed most, what food commodities do people need most ant the like and then come up with sound economic policies whereby they (Government) would be the sole importers of food. In this case nationwide government food stores built for this purpose would sell these at reseanable retail prices to people. Private businesses can by al means continue to operate under the system, but they would have to buy from the government and sell at prices regulated by a price control agency which would set, monitor and control prices of goods in line with world market prices nationwide.

Another option is for the government to establish processing factories to fully process locally produced food and farm produce, instead of exporting these raw materials for cheap and having to spend so much foriegn currency importing food that we can process by ourselves if they (Government) decide to stop being lazy, selfish and irresponsible.

This post was deleted because it contravenes AllAfrica's commenting guidelines.

It is an indeed pathetic situation people, isn't it? I know we are a third world country, but with all fairness we aren`t doing justice to ourselves as far as food self-sufficiency is concerned. Taking a close look at the Budget one would realize that we do spend a lot on food importation alone, which clearly outlines our high dependancy on other countries for more than 50% of food we need and consume on a daily basis.

This dependency attitude has made us so vulnelable because the slightest crisis in global economies of leading nations is nine times out of ten going to have a knock on effect on the prices of basic commodities especially rice.

It's high time we start working on solving the issue of sky-rocketting prices of goods in the Gambia, as it seems to me that nothing is being done to address it, or too little attention is paid to it should i say.

"Therefore, all should heed the call for back to the land, made by the His Excellency, The President, Dr. Alhaji Yahya A. J. J. Jammeh, by simply investing in crop financing of irrigated rice production through the proposed concept of contract/absentee farming operations."

The above is not going to be a solution either am afraid mr Editor.

I beleive that to solve the problem, the government make a close study of the general feeding attitude of the people, what food commodities are consumed most, what food commodities do people need most and the like and then come up with sound economic policies whereby they (Government) would be the sole importers of food. In this case nationwide government food stores built for this purpose would sell these at reseanable retail prices to people. Private businesses can by all means continue to operate under the system, but they would have to buy from the government and sell at prices regulated by a price control agency which would set, monitor and control prices of goods in line with world market prices nationwide.

Another option is for the government to establish processing factories to fully process locally produced food and farm produce, instead of exporting these raw materials for cheap and having to spend so much foriegn currency importing food that we can process by ourselves if they (Government) decide to stop being lazy, selfish and irresponsible bodies of men and women.