The Dialogue is almost coming to an end; memories of the salient points that have all along accompanied the message the president have conveyed to the people are still very fresh. After a personal analysis of the close to 10 days provincial tour, one is inclined to take in two most important raison d'être that must have prompted the planning of this landmark mission in the first place. Firstly, to meet the people, sound and share their opinion and celebrate with them, and, secondly, to reiterate the ‘call to the land’.

We can not tell for certain if the people have agreed, but one thing we have all seen for ourselves is that the message has been past, and that the initial response of the people is promising. The calls have been heeded to overwhelmingly, from Barra to Serekunda, at

But beneath all these, there is the uncharted issue of the way forward. Report has it that the Gambia’s rice production has experienced an astronomical decline in years now. If we asked what is responsible for this, the only probable answer would be apathy to farming, which can be partly attributable to a deep-seated notion that agriculture is for the poor.

The pictures on our home screens and the caliber of people we choose as our role models influentially tricked us on our sense of civilization. The idea is related to the belief that everything African is not modern and out of touch with present day realities. This has led to some of us renouncing our true identity.

What a caricature of integrity!

In any case, the bottom-line is that our destiny is in our own hands. We can only make a genuine claim over total independence if we are self-reliant. And there is absolutely no way that we can gain self-reliance if we continue to be relying on external supply for our basic needs, like our food requirement. Allah knows we can produce rice, millet, cassava, and all it takes to keep life going in this country. It is not the land, nor is it the rain that we lack. You might be right to say you do not have a piece of land of your own to cultivate on, but that you do not have a land at all to cultivate on? That will be quite an unjustifiable excuse.  

But then perhaps there is no point to be troubled, as we are experiencing a revolutionary shift in approach to agriculture. Evidently, there has never been such a level of hype, been spearheaded from within government circles. Of course, this is by no means the first time they have been talking about it. Indeed, ‘operation feed yourself’ evolved into a household catchphrase, thanks to the prominence attached to the call by the Gambian leader, President Jammeh. And he did not stop there; he went on to adopt a leadership by example policy.

Those of us who frequent Kanilai are living witnesses to this. In fact, how many of us know that on most of the visits we make to Kanilai, we feed on what is cultivated in one of the farms of the president? The meat we eat, are they not from the president’s cattle herd? On most occasions, the fish we eat are they not from the president’s pond? What kind of example do Gambians want to see now to get convinced that the land is our solution?

Indeed we can make the much needed change if we so wish, all we need to do is to change our attitude. This call for attitudinal change, it must be made clear, must not be restricted to the poor people in the village. The performance of our agriculture experts is quite crucial to this end.

The president’s plan of using the green boys and girls will be a perfect vehicle to achieving this goal. But again the success of such a massive vision would greatly depend on the sincere and full participation of the authorities at the department of state for agriculture. All we need is to transform all the theoretical ideas into practical ones.