By Kebeli Demba Nyima
The austere Boeotian poet Hesiod, writing in eighth-century BCE Greece, observed in Works and Days that labour has its appointed season and that reward follows effort not by chance, but by order. In rural Gambia, December was once the only month that truly belonged to the farmer. The groundnuts were harvested, dried, and stacked. The hardest part of the year was over. What remained was the journey to the Secco to sell one’s produce. That journey carried pride. In those days, a farmer went to the Secco with the same assurance a salaried worker feels on payday, confident that the year’s labour would finally convert into cash. He went to account for his labour, and work finally paid back in full.
Those who grew up in farming communities remember the mood clearly. Villages were alive. Ox-carts, donkey-carts, and horse-carts rolled out before sunrise, creaking under the weight of groundnut bags. Men spoke confidently about tonnage and expected returns. Women planned household needs knowing money was coming. Children understood, without being told, that December meant relief. School fees would be paid. New clothes would be bought. Old debts would be cleared. This was during the days when the Gambia Produce Marketing Board (GPMB) still gave order to the system, and groundnut production stood at its peak.
The groundnut trade season had the same economic character as tax season in the United States, when households await the return of dollars from Uncle Sam, a predictable moment when income deferred over the year is released, obligations are settled, consumption follows necessity, and labour is finally translated into liquid value. The difference, however, was fundamental: in rural Gambia, this was not a refund from the state, but the direct conversion of physical labour into cash, earned in the fields and realised at the Secco, without mediation or illusion.
December was not only economic. It was social. It was the season when many young men took new brides, secure in the knowledge that they could now shoulder responsibility. Others upgraded their lives in modest but meaningful ways, moving their families from thatched mud houses into cement-block homes roofed with corrugated iron, depending on how bumper the harvest had been. Groundnuts made these transitions possible. They were the cash crop that sustained the Gambian economy from colonial times well into independence, long before slogans about diversification entered policy speeches.
Weekly markets in major towns came alive during this season. Kaur, Farafenni, and Jarra Soma became hives of activity. Farmers arrived with cash in hand. Traders stocked up. Tailors, carpenters, and petty merchants all felt the ripple effect of a good groundnut trade season. December was when the economy breathed fully, when money circulated beyond Banjul and into the interior of the country.
Here, the insight of Adam Smith, the eighteenth-century political economist and author of The Wealth of Nations, finds quiet confirmation. Smith argued that wealth is realised through circulation rather than hoarding. December was the moment when that principle became visible in rural Gambia. Income generated in the fields moved outward through markets and households, increasing liquidity, easing constraints, and allowing even farmers of modest means to experience a temporary sense of economic security and material ease.
The Secco was both a place of tension and happiness, but it was never a place of humiliation. Produce was weighed, records were kept, and payment followed within a reasonable time. The system was not generous, but it was predictable. That predictability sustained rural life. It gave farmers the confidence to clear land and plant again the following year. So respected was the system that many farmers dreamed of seeing their sons become Secco managers after completing secondary or high school. The Secco manager was a figure of standing in the community, trusted because he stood between the farmer and the state.
During the post-harvest and farming seasons, the GPMB functioned as more than a buyer of produce. It operated as a support pillar for rural life. Fertilisers and seeds were supplied through organised channels, often at subsidised rates. Farming equipment was made available. Soft loans helped farmers support their families during the long months between planting and payment. Alongside this, cooperative institutions such as the Gambia Farmers’ Credit Union provided an additional layer of security, offering accessible credit where commercial banking did not reach. These mechanisms reduced risk and made production viable.
Farmers knew where to turn when support was needed. The state was present in rural life in a tangible way. Assistance with inputs, access to credit, and guidance through the Cooperativesystem provided assurance. That assurance mattered. It encouraged planning, expanded acreage, and strengthened commitment to production. Groundnut farming became a labour sustained by confidence rather than desperation.
The decline in groundnut production did not begin in the fields. It began in offices and boardrooms. Under the PPP government, corruption entered the system gradually but decisively. Secco managers and senior officials within the GPMB abused their positions and diverted funds intended for price stabilisation and farmer protection. Payments were delayed. Prices became unpredictable. Trust collapsed. By the 1990s, major financial scandals involving senior management, including the theft of millions of dalasis and the flight of some officials, broke the institution’s credibility. The GPMB began to collapse long before it was rebranded under different names, preserving structure without reform.
December was once a month of certainty and gradually became a month of uncertainty. Today, one can visit farming villages and struggle to distinguish harvest season from any other period of the year. The economic signals that once defined December have faded. The seasonal vitality that animated rural life has weakened, and local markets no longer reflect the momentum they once did.
As M Sajo Jallow poignantly argues in his commentary, “Groundnut Decline: Value Chain or Democracy Deficit?”, published in The Standard on December 12, 2025, farmers continued to produce while receiving only a fraction of the true value of their crop. The gap between export prices and farm-gate prices widened, and the burden was borne entirely by producers. Production declined not because farmers lost knowledge or skill, but because the system stopped rewarding effort and honesty.
What was lost is more than output figures. What was lost is dignity. December once affirmed that labour mattered and that the state recognised its producers. Today, it reveals how little rural voices influence policy in a system hollowed out by corruption and neglect.
Thus, reading Sajo Jallow’s commentary brings a sense of nostalgia for an era when the groundnut sector, though imperfect, functioned with purpose and order. But it also brings anger. That anger stems from the knowledge that the decline was not inevitable. It was the result of political choices made by successive administrations that steadily pushed farmers to the margins of policy priorities.
From an economic perspective, this neglect defies logic. Agriculture employed the majority of Gambians and generated vital foreign exchange, yet public investment drifted away from it. Empirical evidence across developing economies shows that sustained growth is built on productive rural sectors. By neglecting farmers, The Gambia undermined its own economic base and deepened inequality. From 1996 to date, farmers have remained loyal to incumbents, yet they have remained politically and economically marginalised. They vote in large numbers, but their interests rarely translate into policy outcomes. Institutions were renamed rather than reformed, signalling continuity rather than change. The state retreated from responsibility while maintaining rhetorical commitment to agriculture.
From a political economy standpoint, the groundnut sector fell victim to elite capture. Control over pricing, credit, and logistics became concentrated in the hands of a few, while risks were transferred downward to farmers. Production declined not because of climate alone, but because incentives were destroyed.
The way forward requires more than empty promises to farmers. Government must restore credibility through transparent pricing, timely payments, accountable institutions, and genuine farmer representation. Agriculture must return to the centre of national planning. Until that happens, December will continue to arrive stripped of its promise, and groundnuts will gradually lose their place as the country’s major cash crop, not because the land has failed, but because the state has failed the people who till it.
