Gambia, September 2022

CARD Working Week for updating and revising the rice seeds development strategy of The Gambia

Rice is a staple food of The Gambians with a per capita consumption of 117kg, despite this fact, the country does not produce enough to satisfy its domestic requirement. Only 19% of the rice consumed (275,257mt) in 2021 was produced locally implying that a staggering 81% was imported. This has put enormous pressure on the already lean foreign reserve. In order to overcome this challenge of low local production and high importation, the rice sector needs to be developed so as to produce locally to feed the population and to conserve the funds currently being used to import the commodity. In order to overcome the aforementioned challenges, The Gambia will need to double its current rice production, this will amount to a significant investment in the development of the rice sector.

The Gambia was among the countries that successfully formulated the rice seed development strategy through CARD support. The strategy had a four-year lifespan from 2014 to 2018. Thus its operationalization ended with the end of CARD phase1. In view of the changes that had taken place in the rice sector in the last few years, especially in the seed sector, it is necessary to update and revise the strategy to form the second-generation rice seed development strategy (RSDS2).

The task force responsible for carrying out the revision of the document recently met at Baobab Country Hotel & Resort Bijilo through a CARD-organized working week (25-30 September 2022). The Director General of the National Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) represented the Minister of Agriculture. In his goodwill message, he pointed out that one of the significant achievements in the seed sector in the last few years was the setting up of the National Seed Secretariat (NSS). The NSS is mandated to oversee the development of the seed sector including rice seed; however, a lot of challenges still exist in the rice seed value chain. The current update needs to provide a solution on the pathway to ameliorating some of the challenges.

Key outputs/Results

The overall objective of this strategy is to ensure the availability of high-quality rice seeds to farmers at all times by doubling production of improved quality rice seeds (36%) by 2030. Achievement of this objective will align with the goal of the National Rice Development Strategy (NRDS2) which is to annually produce 651,342 tons of paddy by 2030. Based on the aforementioned objective and in consideration of the current certified seeds production, the task force identified the gap. The volume of seed to cover the gap was calculated, which shows that there is a need to produce additional 213 tons of CS every year for the next nine (9) years.

The team also discussed some of the challenges inhibiting the growth of the rice seed value chain and how to ameliorate them. The challenges include

i) Low human capacity at the National Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) and the National Seed Secretariat (NSS). These two institutes have the mandates for breeder seeds production and seeds inspection and certification respectively and thus need to be well capacitated in terms of the number of staff and technical capacity. The consensus of the task force is that the NARI need to recruit 3 additional rice breeders and 20 inspections and certification officers’ for the NSS. The newly recruited and existing personnel will need to undergo training.

ii) Deficit of working tools at the NSS. The consensus was for the establishment of a modern seed certification laboratory at the NSS.

iii) Lack of seed plan. With the lack of seed plan the data on the amount of seeds available in the system are not always  reliable, the task force, therefore, proposed an annual national seed production plan

iv) Importation of foundation seeds by the development partners. This action leads to the inability of the NSS to know the exact amount of FS available in the system.

v) Distribution of free certified seeds to the farmers. This action leads to a low seed replacement rate. The consensus of the task force is that all seeds related issues need to pass through the NSS.

Way forward

As a way forward the task force agreed to revise the strategy document by incorporating the discussion points of the working week, this will be done by 7 November 2022. Thereafter a working week will be organized at the end of November or early December 2022 to formulate concept notes for the operationalization of the NRDS2 and RSDS2.