Demba Sabally, Minister of Agriculture, has handed over the site for the construction of cold storage in Soma, LRR, costing approximately 2.85 million Dalasi for a maximum period of six months.

The construction of this facility is under the project called Resilience of Organizations for Transformative Smallholder Agriculture project (ROOTS) which is under the Ministry of Agriculture, funded by IFAD and The Gambia Government.

Mr Sabally said the storage facility is geared towards minimising post-harvest losses encountered by the communities’ vegetable producers, as well as strengthening their capacity to negotiate favorable prices for the purchase of their products, without the imminent threat of perishability.

He described the cold storage facilities as significant in addressing post-harvest losses encountered by vegetable growers, mostly women around the country.

“You will recall that this process started last October, when my ministry agreed with IFAD, the principal donor of the ROOTS Project, to construct three cold storage facilities around the country, on a pilot basis, due to the urgent need to address the problem of high post-harvest losses across the country,” he said.

“All six marketing federations around the country were invited to submit proposals for their Regions, which were evaluated by an Independent Review Committee, and Sofanyama was selected as one of the successful federations,” he added.

Reporting by Adama Makasuba