By Fatou Bojang
The Ministry of Agriculture, in collaboration with the World Food Programme (WFP), convened a validation workshop on the National Grain Reserve Project to support food security and resilience in the Gambia.
This initiative aligns with the Ministry’s National Food Security Storage Strategy (2021-2026) and Ecowas’s regional food reserve strategy.
Key stakeholders provided feedback to finalize the concept, a crucial step toward implementation.
In a workshop held at the Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara Conference Centre, WFP country director Miranda Sende emphasized the initiative’s critical timing, pointing out that agricultural production in The Gambia meets only 50 percent of the nation’s food needs.
“Alarming statistics from the recent data collected revealed that 69 percent of the population lives below the poverty line and 29 percent are food insecure”, she said.
Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Security Dr. Demba Sabally outlined the government’s commitment to enhancing agricultural efficiency through multiple frameworks, including the Recovery-Focused National Development Plan (2023-2028) and the National Agricultural Investment Plan (GINAP2, 2021-2026).
He asserted the government’s targets for improvement by 2030. UN resident coordinator Karl Frederick Paul reflected on the urgency of addressing food security, noting that despite food being a fundamental human right, hunger levels remain alarmingly high across West Africa, compounded by structural inequalities in The Gambia.
He added that the National Grain Reserve Project aims to alleviate these challenges by strengthening national and regional preparedness capacities.
