allAfrica.com: Gambia: The Challenge of Food Self-Sufficiency (Page 1 of 3)

The challenge of productivity growth is the sole basis for the generation of food self-sufficiency. This cannot be avoided, it is the only route.

Therefore, we must be resolved to consider the on-going food crisis as a welcome challenge for the creation of a new targets-based production ethic in the agricultural sector. The global food crisis must commit us to the attainment of food self-reliance, the provision of necessary institutional support facilities and the rectification of previous production failures.

While we should frown at the traditional low level underutilization of our unique comparative advantage, there are compelling reasons to insist on a targets-based production approach as a solution to most of our agro-rural development problems.

The resource-poor farmers who constitute the overwhelming majority of our population and their primary production problems - poverty itself, low production, the unequal access to the basic production necessities/inputs and to the basic opportunities for self-advancement and development - must be recognized as having primary claims on government policies, programmes and resources.

The Challenge

Let me put the record straight. We cannot be Self-sufficient in rice at the moment. Rice self-sufficiency belongs to the post-salinity control measures to be undertaken by the Gambia River Basin Development Organization (OMVG). What we can achieve for the moment, within a short-term targets-based concentrated work period, is rice-based food-sufficiency. In the next write up, I will outline in detail why self-sufficiency in rice is not feasible at the moment and, alongside this, I will also provide a multiple objective planning method.

What can be done?

In the past, agricultural growth in the country has been achieved mainly by cultivating larger areas. However, the potential for area expansion is getting more and more limited. Some underexploited lowland areas remain, but these are mostly marginal or forested, and destruction of such ecosystems - even for agriculture - would cause more problems than it would provide solutions.

The only way forward is therefore to increase the yield of existing farms - to intensify agricultural production. Intensification requires use of modern varieties responsive to fertilizer treatment and the timely application of more nutrients to the fields. These can either come from 'external' inputs, such as mineral fertilizers, or from locally available soil amendments including organic matter.

The approach to food self-sufficiency is neither an easy nor a cheap undertaking. It is costly by any standard. It success justifies the cost. Productivity growth as a prerequisite to the attainment of food self-sufficiency must be executed in partnership with resources-poor smallholder producers.

These are the authentic private sector, who constitute the overwhelming of our people and their primary problems - poverty itself, low production, unequal access to the basic necessities of life and to the basic opportunities for self-advancement and development - must be recognized as having primary claims on government policies, programmes and resources. Within this context, comprehensive package of services must be made available to the farming community such as a comprehensive supervised input supply system, credit, farm advisory service system, irrigation, rural electrification, small- and medium-scale agro-industries and other supplementary employment opportunities on a scale never before envisioned or carried out. Unless these fundamental structural support changes are in place, neither NEPAD's 6% growth in agricultural productivity nor the World Bank's MDG goals will be achieved. Indeed, we may retreat away from all these targets.

We should design these productivity growth support incentive strategies to be a comprehensive framework, because our national social situation called for it, and to be developmental because our agricultural situation required it.

An upward movement

Farmers may improve the use and recycling of nutrients by applying innovative soil and water conservative methods. However, in order to raise agricultural productivity substantially these methods must be combined with the application of both organic and mineral fertilizers. Because organic sources of soil improvement have low nutrient content and are not abundant, relying on these sources alone is not feasible.

Similarly, using inorganic fertilizers alone may lead to short-term gains but stores up problems in the long-ter, such as soil acidification and loss of soil texture, both of which lead to yield decline. The best strategy is therefore to combine inorganic and organic soil amendments; the mineral fertilizer provides most of the nutrients while the organic fertilizer increases soil organic matter, structure and buffering capacity. This is defined as:

Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM)

The rationale for intensification based on ISFM is simple. There are synergies from using both inorganic and organic fertilizers that not only boost nutrient levels but also improve the efficiency of nutrient and water use.

web allafrica.com	Enter your search terms	Submit search form
OR subscribers use AllAfrica's premium search engine


Use our pull-down menus to find more stories

Today's Most Active Stories