President Adama Barrow today launched three transformative agricultural projects in The Gambia in recognition of agriculture being the backbone of the nation’s economy and key to ending poverty and hunger.
The projects are the REWARD-Gambia Programme, the P2-P2RS Sahel Resilience Initiative, and the Gambia Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending Establishment Project, GAMIRSAL.
Held at the Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara International Conference Centre in Bijilo on Tuesday 15 July, the launching was attended by top senior government officials and development partners.
In his keynote address, Gambian leader Adama Barrow said REWARD-Gambia Programme aims to provide modern irrigation infrastructure, improved seed systems, mechanisation services, and market access within sustainable, private sector-led integrated rice production clusters.
According to him, the project targets 8,000 households and over 120,000 indirect beneficiaries across the seven agricultural regions of the country.
The P2-P2RS will support resilience infrastructure, such as rehabilitation of gardens and rice fields, provision of machines, improvement of climate-smart seeds and fertilizer, and provision of small ruminants and poultry, the President stated.
However, he said, the project targets sixty-seven thousand, two hundred direct and indirect vulnerable Gambian households. “The project will intervene in nineteen (19) districts to strengthen their resilience against climate change and food insecurity,” he added.
He further said the third project, GAMIRSAL, is set to transform agricultural finance by enabling five thousand direct beneficiaries and twenty thousand indirect beneficiaries to access credit through a national risk-sharing system.
These three projects target 50% of the beneficiaries to fall within the youth and women to ensure they are empowered and participate fully in productive activities, he concluded.
