Gov’t To Buy A Ton Of Groundnuts At D32, 000 This Year
President Adama Barrow has promised farmers at the meeting held on Monday at Ndunku Kebbeh community that this year’s season, his government would buy a ton of groundnuts at D32, 000, giving a high shift from last year’s price which was sold at D28, 000 per ton.
President Barrow was speaking as he commenced his 2022 meetings on the meet with the people tour, with this year’s theme “together we can accelerate socio-economic growth and maintain peace and stability”, is also regarded by communities of Lower Niumi as a great opportunity for their concerns been looked after by directly having to dialogue with the president.
He however, urged all Gambian farmers to sell their groundnuts to the government. He noted that there has been some farmers who would sell their groundnuts to other middle men who will later resale the groundnuts outside the country. He stated that “we need to help one another, because those middle men do not give you fertilizer, it is the government that subsidized to give you fertilizer for your farming activities.”
He further promised that “whoever sells his groundnuts to the government, his name would be recorded and would be first given priorities for fertilizer. It is not fair for the government to give you the farmers fertilizers and at the end, you sell your produce to outsiders while the government is willing to buy your groundnuts at a better price”
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He further noted that the Gambia government spent D500 million on fertilizer subsidize, which cost the government D3, 500 per bag of fertilizer and later sold per bag at D2, 000 to farmers.
He informed the crowds that the government dialogued has had a dialogue with the World Bank on the fertilizer and the World Bank has now given the Gambia government $10 million to buy fertilizers and to import it to the country.
Barrow advanced that his government has also spoken with Nigeria which has agreed to give the Gambia government 20, 000 tons of fertilizers for next year’s farming season. Adding that Gambia is one of the countries that are working much hard to fight hunger among other hardships.
After listening to previous speakers with similar sentiments, President Barrow responded that his government has started working on borehole drillings for the provision of enough water supply through three phases which one of them was the support the government received from the Japan government which its implementation is currently ongoing.
He noted that the other phase was initiated by the president’s office, which its pipes have already been fixed and waiting to be fully operational and the third phase which is been supported by the Africa Development Bank that is currently awaiting final paper agreement to commence its project implementation.
