The question
VECO Senegal-Gambia was preparing its 2011-2013 programme and needed to know where to intervene in the Gambian rice sector. That meant understanding the whole chain: who grows the rice and with what means, who processes it, who trades it, how the final price is formed, and where the real bottlenecks lie.
How we worked
The analysis draws on survey data covering 370 farms, weekly price monitoring across seven markets over three months, and interviews with twenty-six officials — the Ministry of Agriculture, the national agricultural research institute, farmer federations, non-governmental organisations, traders and millers. All of it set against national agricultural statistics going back to 1974.
What we found
A women's crop, on tiny plots
More than 90 % of Gambian rice is grown by women: they hold 91 % of upland rice fields and 96 % of mangrove fields. Yet they have the least access to credit and the least control over land. The average holding is 0.6 hectares, and cultivable area per farmer fell from 1.08 hectares in 1992 to 0.62 in 2005.
Rice takes 8 % of the land and irrigation stays marginal
Of roughly 200,000 hectares cultivated each year, rice occupies only 8 %, far behind groundnut and millet. Irrigation potential is estimated at 80,000 hectares; the area actually irrigated stagnates at around 2,500 hectares. Average yield across the 370 farms is 0.94 tonnes per hectare, against 5 tonnes achievable under irrigation with two harvests a year.
Under 10 % of the market
Between 1986 and 2004, local rice exceeded 10 % of the national market on only two occasions: 11.08 % in 1995 and 9.48 % in 2001. Its floor, in 1991, was 0.88 % — 1,980 tonnes local against 222,680 tonnes imported. Over the same period the import bill rose from 72.4 million dalasi in 1985-86 to 598 million in 2004-05.
Yet local rice is not more expensive
This is the study's most counter-intuitive finding. The belief that imported rice is cheaper is not supported by the retail prices observed in the markets. In our 2010 readings, local rice sold at 15 to 20 dalasi per kilo, imported broken rice at 11 to 16. The gap reflects perceived quality and the irregularity of local supply, not a structural cost advantage.
Processing in ruins, credit looking elsewhere
Only eleven mills are estimated to be operational in the entire country. In the Central River Region — the rice region par excellence — the Kuntaur mill stands idle. As for credit, agriculture's share of bank lending fell from 19.62 % in 1986 to 5.00 % in 2001, while trade's share grew by 31 %.
Agricultural production covers food needs in the Central River Region for only four months of the year.
Rice farming is nonetheless profitable
The production account established on the Jahally irrigated scheme shows, for two annual harvests, costs of 16,289 dalasi per hectare against output of 32,000 — a gross margin of 15,711 dalasi per hectare. The profitability is there. What is missing is access to water, inputs, credit and price information.
What we recommended
- Direct support towards easing women's domestic workload, since they are the growers
- Train trainers from among the farmers, since 90 % of them never attended school
- Open up price information between rural and urban markets, so growers can choose when to sell
- Establish cereal banks to bridge the lean season
- Make any investment in mills conditional on a formal governance system — that is what failed at Kuntaur
- Bring the two national farmer federations closer together, or merge them
How to cite this study
REFT Institute, Inc. — Division pour l'Afrique (B. Ndoye et al.), 2010. Rapport final : étude de la filière du riz en Gambie. Septembre 2010, 62 p. Étude commanditée par VECO Sénégal-Gambie, bureau régional de l'ONG belge Vredeseilanden, dans le cadre de la préparation de son programme 2011-2013.
The report is published under the institutional signature of REFT Institute, Inc. without naming individual authors; the attribution above draws on the firm's records.