BRIDGES MADE DIFFERENCE IN LIVES OF WOMEN FARMERS

The aim of every intervention by the National Agricultural Land and Water Management Development Project (Nema) is to reduce poverty of rural women and youth and increased incomes for the beneficiaries.

This is exactly what Nema is doing for the people of Jarumeh Koto Village, in the Central River Region North.

The Nema project is actually an up scaling of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) previous projects, particularly the Participatory Integrated Watershed Management Project (PIWAMP). 

Under the Nema project, substantial funds has been raised to co-finance the project in the country, of which IFAD contributed US$40 million, and in addition to that also, there has been a parallel co-financing agreement with the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) at a tune of US$50 million. Added to the above figures, there is a parallel financial agreement with the IsDB that is supporting the Building Resilience against Food Insecurity in the Sahel (P2RS) project at a tune of US$20.8 million. The total portfolio of the project is US$76 million.

“The coming of this tidal irrigation and especially the construction of the bridge has transformed our lives for good,” Aja Nyima Sillah, leader of Nematulie Kafo, in Jarumeh Koto Village, told Mansa Banko Blog during an interview in Jarumeh Koto village.

Before the advent of this project, production levels were very low, because shorter women encountered difficulties in crossing the stream and only the taller women could cross and have access to the rice fields.

 “This resulted in our production level…but since the coming of the project, it instilled commitment in us and every woman can now access the rice field anytime they wish and this has increased our yield. Before the construction of the bridge, transportation of rice harvests from the fields to the homes was a nightmare for the women of Jarumeh Koto; but today it is as simple as eating or drinking. Since the construction of the bridge, donkey carts go up to the fields to collect the rice without any delay. This is a big development for us,” she said.

Madam Sillah said their cultivation was limited to only home feeding before the construction of the bridge.

“Today, our harvests have increased significantly. What an individual woman can earn today is far better than what a group can gain before,” she said.

According to the leader of Nematulie Kafo, many women are today taking care of themselves and at the same time paying school fees for their children; sponsor the wedding of their girl child and address other family problems. All these are responsibilities of men, but today women are helping their husbands to solve some of these problems - all thanks to the project,” she explained.

                                            Increase Earning

She made it clear that before, she could not produce even 10 bags of rice, but today she produces 100 bags.  Due to savings realised from not buy imported rice, she has invested in small ruminant and cows, which she never owned before.

“This project has brought us many developments and we thank God for that. If I am to have a friend today Nema is my friend. Nema is also a friend to Jarumeh Koto. They (Nema) rescued us from difficulty and pushed us to development” she added.

While Aja Nyima Sillah praises the project for having increased the earnings and production of all women in Jarumeh village, but she quickly remembered that last year’s harvest was severely affected by climate change.

“It was a disaster. We had nothing last season. The water flooded our fields. We did not eat all our produce. We sold part of the produce and saved some seeds for the following season.

Strengthen unity

According to her, this project has strengthened the unity among women of the village, through the kafo and the Village Farmers; Association (VFA); saying anything they engage in today, they do it together insisting that unity is strength. “We all speak with one voice” she said.

Economically empowered

“This project has empowered us economically because someone who could not solve a D10.00 problem before is now solving a D1, 000.00 problems on her own, which is really self-development and all thanks to Nema,” she said with pride.

Continuing with her comparision of the state of affairs of the village “before” and “now”, She said, “before the project, we rarely bought expensive clothes, but today, we all dress elegantly. “Now you can see how developed we are economically and even health-wise because we are able to take care of all medical bills and without delay - all due to the Nema project” she said.

Nema as a family

 “Nema is our family. They make us who we are today, and their support has transformed our lives from one level to another. We will be ever grateful to them and anytime they are ready we will be with them, because they took us from extreme poverty” Aja Nyima Sillah, leader of Nematulie Kafo, in Jarumeh Koto Village insisted on saying.

She said they need more support from Nema in the areas of the rice field, Vegetable gardens etc so as to increase their production level.

“In our garden, we need a borehole. We also need tractors for our rice fields. It is the main problem that we are facing today and the entire area is without tractor. Therefore, we find it very difficult to plough our fields on time,” she highlighted.

She appealed for immediate support from Nema to help them transform their rice fields to year round fields to help in increasing their production level and earnings.

Healthy accounts

Mansa Banko Blog, also visited another Nema project intervention site in the Central River Region South, a village Niamina Sotokoi.

At Niaminia Sotokoi, Mr. Sankung Danso, said women of the village have a very healthy account with Trust Bank, Basse Branch and every individual woman in the village is also having a good saving or own animal (animal husbandry).

He noted that before many pregnant women and others had serious problems of reaching their fields.

“From where this road stops, there is another road ahead called ‘Dehkalleh’ that place is our main problem. It is just that a work cannot start from behind and come in front, if not what we want was for it to start from behind because that place is more difficult than this one that is constructed” he said.

According to him, this has already increased their production, because they now access their fields easily, than before, they can now work the way they wish. He said they find it very difficult to access their fields on time whereby reduce their production level.

“We struggle to get to the fields on time and by the time we get there, we are tired and cannot work the way we wish which will surely limit our production. If you want to work the way you want you need to get to the work place at a particular time, but if that fail your target may not be met and that will reduce your production level. This is what was happening to us here. Our production level has now increase to 20% from 10% all thanks to Nema‘s intervention” Danso narrated.

Feeding & School Fees

“From the produce we earn from the fields, we use part of it to feed our families, sell some for school fees and as well into the general welfare of our families, from health, clothing and others uses”, he said.

Danso said depending on how much one produce, it takes them 3, 4, 5 or 6 months feeding.

“We sell some percentage of our annual produce. I can say we sell 3 to 4 percent out of 10 percent to address some of our children educational expenses. For me I normally have 10 to 20 bags of rice yearly, but every year I have 10 bags, I normally sell 4 bags to raise money for my children educational expenses and the remaining 6 bags are for feeding. The purpose of our farming is feeding and educational expenses of our children” Danso said.

No Market for Our Produce

“We do not have fix price, because we have no market for our produce, we sale depending on our needs, sometimes, we sold our produce in urgency just to solve a particular problem and there is no fix price for that,” he said.

Improved Social Life

Danso said the project has improved their social life within the community as it brings unity among them and every villager is always ready to contribute its part to the development of the village.

“We have seen some developments. Before, what we were not close to is what we are now beginning to come closer to. This project has huge benefit in our society, people from other villagers or communities in The Gambia and beyond are joining us here, all because of this project,” he said.

Constrains

With all these developments, Danso insisted that there are still constrains that they are facing.

“Some women even use sticks to walk with just to get into the field. It has also reduced our level of production. We are left with another 100 meters that needs to be constructed to fully address our problem of an easy access to our rice fields,” he said.

He said along this 100 meter away, there is a bridge called ‘Dehkalleh’ there is no office in the country where this complain did not reach.

“It is our main problem as many women lost their pregnancies; others injured their legs due to the bad condition of the place. Left to us alone, the place should be the first to be constructed before this causeway. But it is very clear too that works cannot start from behind. The place is really disturbing us a lot, it is our main concern now, we are really suffering, but the youth are really playing their part in addressing the problem. We need more help to address the problem. We want Nema to support us address this problem, if that happens, it will help increase our yield,” he concluded.

                                       Nema project components

The project components and outcomes are three (3) complementary project components that comprise (i) Watershed development, (ii) Agricultural Commercialization and (iii) Project Facilitation.

Component 1: Watershed Development. The intended outcome is the improved productivity of scarce agricultural lands, to be achieved by purposeful investments in land and water resources, vegetable gardens and access roads, coupled with the capacity of farmers to manage the productive assets within their watershed. The main activity is substantial investment in public economic infrastructure including water control structures, access roads and markets.

Component 2: Agricultural Commercialization. The outcome of this component is a sustained uplift in the level of agricultural business activity in profitable primary production and the supply of support services such as mechanical land preparation, rice milling and transport by both youth-led enterprises and producer organisations.

Component 3: Project facilitation. A Project Support Unit (PSU) under the auspices of the Central Project Coordination Unit (CPCU) within the Ministry of Agriculture would be responsible for project management, mainly the supervision of performance-based contracts, and some direct implementation support. A particular feature of Nema would be building up the Government’s internal capacity to plan, monitor and evaluate investments and interventions in the sector, and to generate and use knowledge products for evidence-based policy dialogue.