NA Select Committee On Agriculture Presents Its Report On The US$1 Million Soil Fertility Project
By Ramatoulie Jawo
The National Assembly Agriculture Committee presented its report on the US$1 million Financing Agreement between the Gambian government and the Islamic Development Bank for the Regional Soil Fertility Mapping Project to the plenary on Tuesday.
Hon. Omar Darboe, the Chairman of the Select Committee on Agriculture, told the Assembly that the last time The Gambia carried out a countrywide soil fertility mapping was in 1980. He said that with the changes in soil dynamics, it is important to conduct another mapping to assess the current state of soil fertility in the country.
Hon. Darboe said that the information available on the nutrient status and quality of the soil in the areas where investors are interested in investing in commercial crop production is “obsolete” and not useful. He said that this has scared away many potential investors.
Hon. Darboe told members of the National Assembly (NAMs) that public institutions, university students, and private individuals all take soil samples across the border to Senegal for testing. He described this practice as “very expensive.”
Darboe also said that the results of the tests could be compromised if the samples are not well-handled during transportation. He urged the government to establish a soil testing laboratory in the Gambia so that these tests can be done locally.
“It is based on these and many other reasons that the Ministry of Agriculture deems it necessary to carry out a comprehensive soil fertility mapping for the whole country,” he said.
Hon. Darboe also discussed the monitoring and management of the project.
“The Select Committee on Agriculture of the National Assembly will also be invited to continuously monitor the implementation of the project to ensure transparency and achievement if the set-up is good. In addition to this, a project Steering Committee comprising highly placed senior government and non-government officials will be monitoring the implementation progress,” he said.
Hon. Darboe emphasized that the project would provide the country with its first-ever digitized soil fertility map.
“It will also provide two State-of-the-art spectral soil laboratories, one at NARI and one at the Soil and Water Management Unit of the Department of Agriculture that will be able to carry out all soil nutrient and physical analysis without the use of chemical reagents”, Hon Darboe, highlighted.
He said after thorough consultations and scrutiny, the committee recommended that the project should be implemented by personnel serving in an existing department within the Ministry of Agriculture without him or her leaving the position he or she is occupying in the institution.
“One of the labs should be built in Sapu in the CRR south. After the establishment of the Labs, essential parts of the machines should be made available for sustainability purposes and a four-year warranty should be provided for all the equipment supplied to the project,” he said.