Towards food self sufficiency

It is not a coincidence that every generation of humanity comes with its characteristic attribute manifested in the caliber of people that dominates its time. Ours is no exception. We have a lot to show to generations to come. Some of it unpleasant, but most of it exemplary.

We are greatly indebted to a few people of our time for their consummate effort in pushing forward the course of development of the human race. They dedicated their lives entirely in the course of raising the standard of living of the peoples of the world, they stand for the underprivileged and the downtrodden, and they never show even a slight semblance of derailing in spite of all the odds they face.

President Jammeh is one such person, and his back-to-the-land call has proven to be so; a pure attempt at solving a global concern. His call is evocative of Amilcar Cabral’s call on Guineans to return to the "source." But what is all the more fascinating is that he did not only make the back-to-land-call a mere policy document but rather he   puts it into practice.  

He did this so as to boost the moral of Gambians and thereby making the scheme a profitable enterprise.  This indeed manifests to Gambians that we are blessed with a leader who means business in his words and action.

Tuesday’s disclosure of the existence of a 40-day rice variety in The Gambia, cultivated on the premises of the State House, opened up another revelation; that farming activities do not stop in Kanilai after all. It also shows that the propensity of our urge to excel in the self-sufficiency drive is being kept live.

With this new variety of rice, Gambians, depending on how we respond to the call of the president, will soon be poised to harvesting rice two or tree times a season.  This will put us on the path of becoming the envisaged power house of socio-economic development.

The National Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) can not be left behind in such a crusade. So are other technicians in related fields, and even the funding institutions. Then and only then will we be sure of reaching our goal.