If information gleaned from key players in the groundnut trade this year is anything to go by, the Gambia Food Processing and Marketing Corporation formerly Gambia Groundnut Corporation GGC is struggling to reach its target of 40, 000 tons of groundnut, midway into trade season. The Corporation in fact had to increase its purchasing price twice in this season alone in an attempt to beat off a stiff competition from private dealers who offered more money and far more convenient buying process for formers.
Unlike the Corporation, private dealers go to every hamlet and town with all kind of transport and ready cash to buy from the farmers right in their homes. This saves the farmers from the trouble of looking for empty bags, transport and logistics to get their nuts to GGC seccos. The result is that the farmers would prefer private dealers to their own national agency despite all the subsidies and other facilities provided by them to the farmers.
In our view certain things are responsible for this, notably the introduction this year of a new buying system which requires that farmers are paid by a bank cashier, instead of the secco managers and in some cases through money transfer platforms before they can access their money. This method is not popular among both the farmers and the secco managers who felt marginalised and view the new method as defeating the spirit of a corporative union. Though the GGC said the new method ensures transparency and prevent shortages of funds, (which the secco managers deny) it has made their buying process bureaucratic and slow, giving great advantage to the private dealers.
However in our view the rot in the sector transcends just the buying method. The main focus of the Corporation and the government in general should be to make farming, especially groundnut cultivation more attractive than it is so that many more people would find it a profitable venture. The producer price for a ton, which is D26,000 at the highest, is still too small, and unattractive for any enterprising youth to invest since months of the year on.
