By Fatou B. Cham
Officials of the National Food Security Processing and Marketing Cooperation (NFSPMC), formerly known as Gambia Groundnut Cooperation (GGC) engaged in the wholesale buying and export of the country’s annual groundnut crop, have revealed that they are buying groundnuts from the Gambian farmers surpassing their target.
Momodou Njie, Managing Director of NFSPMC explained that in 2020 they were only able to buy a total of two thousand two hundred and twenty-four (2,224) tons, and in 2021, they bought seven thousand two hundred (7,200) tons. For this year’s marketing season, he revealed, they bought more than forty-three thousand (40,000) metric tons.
“Normally what we do on annual basis, is to make a forecast ofwhat our requirements are and with that forecast, we engage the planning service unit for data under the Ministry of Agriculture,” he said.
According to the Managing Director, the forecast for that particular period for groundnut was about eighty thousand (80,000) metric tons for the output and they projected they would buy half of the 80,000 metric tons which was forty thousand (40,000) metric tons.
He asserted that based on historical trends, the Corporation could not even buy one-third of the projected amount; hence it was thought prudent to scale down the forecast to thirty thousand (30,000) metric tons for 2020 but the actual figure in relation to their projection has gone beyond thirty thousand; thus surpassing the target.
With regards to the buying of the groundnuts, he revealed that AGIB Bank LTD was engaged to assist in facilitating the buying process.
“In those days, it was NFSPMC and some private traders but this year it was only GGC in the beginning because the market was not favorable internationally,” he said.
“A lot of the International buyers were not around and we were under a lot of pressure. Despite the pressure, we were able to deliver and we paid all the farmers that were involved”.
In the process of buying, the MD intimated that there have been challenges which include logistics, stating that usually, the cash they take to a particular community gets exhausted before the end of the day which prompts the bank officials come back to withdraw physical cash to be taken back to that particular community. This he pointed out compromises efficiency.
To remedy the challenge, Mr Njie disclosed that mobile money transactions would be reintroduced this coming season to reduce the bureaucratic processes of cash management.
The other challenge this year was the poor quality of nuts compared to the previous years due to climate change, the NFSPMC boss revealed, noting that the rainfall pattern was very erratic so the weight of the groundnut was very light.
He said going forward with the right equipment and technology, the NFSPMC will be able to buy both Gambian groundnuts and groundnuts coming from the neighboring countries.
“We have learnt our lessons and we are preparing better. The pre-harvest assessment done by the Ministry of Agriculture would give us an indication of the number of groundnuts that were planted and would be harvested for the season; then we would also do our forecast based on that”.