By Omar Bah
The Gambia Groundnut Corporation (GGC), now the National Food Security Processing and Marketing Corporation (NFSPMC), has secured a US$10 million project from the Ecowas Bank of Investment aimed at addressing the volatility of commodity prices in The Gambia.
This initiative focuses on enhancing food security by implementing strategies to stabilise prices, improve market access, and support local producers. The project will involve collaboration with various stakeholders, including government agencies and agricultural organisations, to create a more resilient food supply chain. By targeting price fluctuations, the NFSPMC aims to ensure affordability and availability of essential commodities for consumers.
Under the leadership of Managing Director Momodou Njai, NFSPMC has undergone significant transformation. The Corporation surpassed targets, purchasing 40,000 metric tonnes of groundnuts in one season, worth over D1 billion. It also increased groundnut prices to D38,000 per tonne and eliminated credit buying, ensuring timely payments to farmers.
The Corporation has also introduced initiatives to ensure diversification and value addition. It plans to process oil and expand into commodities like rice and sugar. Most important of all, it has managed to strengthen ties with Gambian farmers, prioritising their welfare.
In this exclusive end-of-year interview with The Standard, MD Njai highlights his takeaway from the last 12 months. Excerpts:
The Standard: Mr Njai, give us an overview of your activities over the past year.
Thank you very much for granting me this interview. The Standard is a reputable newspaper, and it’s my pleasure to be featured in its end-of-year edition. 2024 has been a very good year for us in the sense that we were able to maintain stability in our operations. We also did a lot of reorganisation in terms of our manpower. We have hired very qualified staff because in the past, at our depots, the level of qualification was very low. They were managed by mainly primary school and high school graduates. So, what we did this year is actually hire graduates from the University of The Gambia because the depots are critical, and we want people that are very competent and experienced to manage them. We also tried to automate a lot of our business processes. In 2023, we managed to automate five weighbridges, but this year [2024], we completed the entire 10 depots. What that means is that if you are weighing your groundnut, it is going to be automated, and whatever is weighed in Basse will be seen in Banjul in real time. There’s no lapse in terms of time. The system is integrated into our accounting system. We have also signed a contract with an IT company to implement what we call the Enterprise Resource Planning System. That system, when completed, will automate the entire business process, ranging from the farmers at the secco all the way to our depots, and then it will track the goods from the depots all the way to Saaro [head office] to our accounting system, which includes HR, admin, IT, and finance, and everything will be consolidated into one system. We have just signed the contract, and the implementation will start very soon, maybe in the coming weeks. In addition to that, we also signed a contract to start erecting our new office complex. As you can see in Saaro, we have legacy buildings. We felt it is necessary and for the dignity of our staff to be accommodated in a very suitable environment so that they can deliver their tasks properly. The office will be built along the highway, and the construction has started in December 2024, and hopefully by September 2025, it will be ready.
Like I said, we also try to maintain what we were doing in terms of fertiliser procurement and distribution. We supplied fertiliser to the entire farming community without issues. We procured and supplied a total of 30,000 metric tonnes, and there was no delay because there were leftovers from 2023 of about 20,000 metric tonnes so we just added 10,000 metric tonnes.
When it comes to groundnut, the President [Adama Barrow] has decided to maintain the same price, which is the best in the sub-region. We are still buying the peanut at D38 per kilo and D38,000 per tonne. The government is also supporting the subsidy. They are paying almost D800 million as subsidy. This, again, is a demonstration that the government is also willing to support the farming community. Like I always say, subsidy is another form of income distribution modality because this is the time the farmers also make their income.
We have also implemented a lot of policy documents. I believe that once you have the fundamentals to guide you, it doesn’t matter if the MD or management are here or not. We have developed a lot of policy documents that will guide the entire operation, ranging from HR policy documents, finance policy documents, marketing policy documents, credit policies, loan policies, vehicle policies, HR schemes of service, rewards and benefits, and compensation packages. We have developed a lot, and all of these were developed in-house by my own staff. Normally, for these things, you hire consultants, but because we now have the technical capacity within, the staff came up with all of these policy documents, which were also reviewed and validated at the level of the board. These are the baselines now for us. Whatever we are doing, we have to follow these documents as standard operating procedure.
Last year, President Barrow, the Agriculture minister, and your office launched an ambitious Smart Farming Project. Where are we with that project?
Very good question. For the smart farming, we did a pilot in the Upper River Region and West Coast Region, and it was a success, I would say, because it gave us an opportunity to understand our climate and environment and how to make it better. We use technology like drip irrigation to water the plants, and we use the technical expertise of our Dutch partners to enhance production and productivity within the farms that we have to produce these onions and other crops. Because these are partnerships, we also want to build our own capacity, and that’s why we hired two agricultural officers from the University of The Gambia to learn from our Dutch partners so that we can implement it for the sustainability of the project. We have also partnered with Radville Farms because they are experts in horticulture. So, hopefully next year, we are going to start implementing that project. It is almost the same, but we just want to expand the level of technical support and assistance. 2024 has been a good year in terms of learning and getting the necessary experience so that next year, we are able to implement at a large scale.
You have said a lot about the Corporation’s plans for 2025. Can you specifically tell us some of the initiatives you intend to implement?
I think if all plans go well, 2025 will be a defining year for the Corporation. A lot of the things that were done in the background in 2024 would be visible in 2025, and the Gambian will feel the impact.
This will include the new power and shelling plants that we are constructing right now. When completed, the power plant will give us a capacity of almost 4 megawatts that will supply the factories, and the excess would be sold to Nawec, which would be another income-generating mechanism for us. So, you could imagine that with everything coming up as planned, our performance will also go up and effectively drive our revenue figures and profitability because we are going to be operating with new modern machines.
We are also trying to work on a refinery plant that will be able to refine oil here so that we can sell it to the local community and export the excess. In addition, we are trying to introduce new factories. We have already written to GiEPA to recognise this area as a free zone so that we can have small factories that would focus on other production lines like soap, peanut candies, and cashew processing. All these things are in our plans, and hopefully they will all come to fruition in 2025.
What happened to the importation of rice and cooking oil?
We have secured a US$10 million financing from Ecowas Bank for Investment for one year to help the country address food security challenges by importing rice, sugar, and cooking oil. The financing is already approved, and hopefully the implementation will start around January or, at the latest, February. It will give us a span of one year to bring these essential commodities and sell them at a very affordable price. So that is another area that we are going to focus on more in addition to the value addition with regard to peanut oil, the cashew, and peanut candies, so 2025 will witness a lot of amazing things.
The government has done a lot in terms of subsidising fertiliser, but farmers still want the price to go down. Do you have any plans in 2025 to fulfil their wishes?
The Gambia imports fertiliser, and the prices are determined by the suppliers. Recently, because of the pandemic and other global challenges, including the wars that are happening right now, prices have skyrocketed, and that is the reason why the government is stepping in to subsidise. In 2024, the government subsidises almost 50 percent of the cost because the price for a bag of fertiliser could have gone up to D2,000 without the government’s intervention. The government also went further to reduce the price by D50.
Coming back to your question, hopefully the prices will go down again because the government is very sympathetic to the farming community. They have done a lot when it comes to groundnut and fertiliser, and I think we can raise our heads high when it comes to the sub-region. So, I will say it is still a possibility because if you look at the history and the trend, it’s always been like that. Even though it has budgetary implications, the government has always been there for them. I would imagine there could be something, but we still have to discuss and talk to the president to get his blessings.
Can you tell us your takeaway from 2024 and one thing you would have loved to achieve but could not?
I would have loved to achieve the automation of all our business processes in 2024 because I believe technology is the way forward and the future. You can have all these policies documented, but you need technology to drive and to enforce them. My only regret is why I didn’t start that as early as possible, but that is because when I came, there were so many issues, so I could not do all of them at once. When I came, I focused on the human capital side. We are now focusing more on technology, and our new IT team is automating everything right now. The Internet we are using in Saaro is the same Internet our depots in Basse and Kaur are using. Whatever Internet we paid for here, those in Basse will access it. We are not paying for each depot, and that is helping us cut costs. They have synchronised the system in such a way that the database I access in Saaro, those in Basse can also access it. So, the IT Department has developed the foundation of the infrastructure. That is why we are also bringing the Enterprise Resource Planning ARP to be part of the infrastructure so that everything from the level of the farmers there will be a POS device that will ensure that whatever they buy will be entered in the POS device and a receipt will be given to them, and it will translate to our accounting system in Saaro. It will be an interesting one. Hopefully in 2025, all of these things will come up.
What is your takeaway?
I think 2024 was a very successful year, and I want to use this opportunity to thank all my staff and Gambian farmers who have been very supportive and understanding. In the final analysis, I think there is a need for us to work together and improve our agricultural outputs. We need to join hands and empower our farmers so that they are able to produce enough essential food commodities for us to address our food security challenges because importing these commodities is no more sustainable, given the value of the dollar now.
