By Arret Jatta
The Resilience of Organizations for Transformative Smallholder Agriculture (ROOTS) Project held its fifth annual Stakeholder Consultative Forum in Central River Region North (CRRN)Kuntaur, on December 10th-11th.
The two-day forum brought together key partners to foster learning, collaboration, and knowledge sharing across national, regional, and community levels.
The forum aimed to provide inclusive platform for stakeholders to jointly review project progress, reflect on achievements, identify challenges, and exchange best practices.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, Mr. Mustapha Bah, regional agricultural director CRRN, praised the ROOTS project for its efforts in increasing agricultural production and consumption in the region.
“TVS, ROOTS who has been doing very important work in CRR North, they are over achieving objectives to increase agricultural production and consumption. Certain rice fields have been expanded, and about 105 hectares have been harvested,” he said.
Project Manager of ROOTS, Mam Alieu Jagne, emphasised the importance of feedback from stakeholders, saying, “We should lead by the name of this forum. It is a consultative forum. We are here as Roots staff to seek your feedback on what we are doing. Please highlight the good but also the not so good. That is the only way we can improve.
We act on behalf of the ministry and are appointed by them. The ministry is responsible for agricultural development in The Gambia. ROOTS is a government project, brought to the country by President Adama Barrow. The project is accountable to the Ministry of Agriculture,” he added.
Governor of Central River Region, Ousman Bah, described the activity as “very important” and praised the ROOTS project for its consultative approach.
“They were very consultative, and they have not stopped there, but they have also gone to the grassroots level, to the regional level, and established committees,” he underscored.
The Deputy Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture Fatou Jammeh Touray also noted the importance of the consultation and urged beneficiaries of the ROOTS project to make best use of the opportunity.
Community members, especially women farmers, shared how the ROOTS project had impacted their lives. One woman said, “Where we were yesterday in terms of agriculture and where we are today is different. We will like to be trained more so that we will be able to use certain tools like the weighing machine and other farming tools as well.”
