The Gambia Agriculture and Food Security Project

Challenge

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) classifies The Gambia as a Least Developed, Low Income Food Deficit Country, with 31.7% of the population living in extreme poverty. As of 2019, the agriculture sector provides employment for about three-quarters of the labor force and smallholder farmers supply about 90% of the domestically produced food. However, the sector produces low and unpredictable yields, is highly susceptibility to droughts and erratic climate patterns, and is essentially rain-fed, with only 3% of the arable land estimated to be under irrigation.

Solution

The project’s development objective is to increase food and nutrition security and household incomes, particularly for vulnerable households in the project areas. This will be achieved through increased agriculture production and productivity, post-harvest management and commercialization, linking smallholders to assured institutional markets (e.g., home-grown school feeding), and active private sector participation. Specifically, the project aims to structure food demand to assured institutional markets and improve smallholder’s productivity by increasing food production, post-harvest management, market access, and resilience for identified food chains; and promote social protection and food safety net programs to reduce food and nutrition insecurity among vulnerable populations.