By Nyima Bah
The Managing Director for the Gambia Food Marketing and Processing Corporation, formerly GGC, has revealed plans to expand the institution’s ventures into critical agricultural avenues including rice and cashew nuts businesses.
Speaking on a radio program, Mr Muhammed Njie said the corporation is working on plans subject to the approval of the board that will grant it authority to venture into rice business.
“We believe our involvement in the rice business will be valid because our targeted price for a bag of rice would not go beyond D1000 and it will be quality rice that we are going to produce,” Njie stated.
He said when the cashew business was introduced last year, the corporation had about 138 tons of cashew, which was swiftly increased to 1200 tons in 2021.
“Now we have both groundnuts and cashews in the business and it is making profits.”
Njie revealed that following successful ventures of these products with some of their international partners, the demands have been on a sharp rise.
“There is a company that demands 2000 tons. And again, we have started exporting our groundnuts to the UK after our ban from exporting groundnuts because of the aflatoxin has been lifted.”
He further disclosed GGC is interested in exploring the possibility of rice production.
“We want to include rice in the process because the price of rice is very high and there are not many competitors in the rice business. So, if we are involved in it there are many plans like the river facilities, we will also be able to make a lot of savings by transporting the rice to other communities using our boats instead of the trucks and sell it for a maximum price of D1000 a bag and still will be able to get profit as opposed to D1700 price for a bag of rice.The expenditure will help boost the economy as well as promote affordability of rice at a reasonable price in the country,” Njie stated.
