Farmers have raised concerns about food insecurity in the country after some poor harvest linked to lack of fertiliser due to its high cost.

The alarm was raised at a farmers summit this week in the Lower River Region. 

“As of now, some farmers started clearing their gardens for onion cultivation because some of them have a poor coos harvest due to lack of fertiliser during the rainy season on the crops,” said Kebba Njie, spokesman for the farmers group. 

Njie continued: “Fertiliser is so costly this year. Today if you go into [Agriculture] stores you’ll find it are filled with bags of fertiliser but there is not enough food in the country. That’s because the fertiliser are too expensive for the poor farmers. And that’s a loss for the country.

“If we don’t have fertiliser, we will not have good harvests and if we have poor harvest, there will be hunger. We foresee a hunger crisis this year.”

He added that the Agriculture ministry is not doing enough to support the farmers. 

“I don’t see any importance of the Ministry of Agriculture as we don’t know what they are doing in this country.

“They supplied us grains with no fertiliser. And they never come to inspect our farms to support us with pesticides until after harvest that’s the time they started coming to inspect our farms. 

“So, for me, I don’t see their importance in the country.” 

The Ministry of Agriculture was contacted but did not immediately respond to Gambiana’s requests for comment.

Reporting by Adama Makasuba