By Nicholas Bass
The Africa Network for Animal Welfare (ANAW) on Tuesday trained scores of Journalists across the country on advocacy for cage-free chicken rearing, at Paradise Suite Hotel, Senegambia.
The daylong training was meant to improve the livelihood of different species of domestic birds with the theme – Towards a Cage-free Continent.
In its goodwill opening message, Dr Abdou Ceesay, the Director General of Livestock said The Gambia like many other African nations continued to highly depend on agriculture for national development.
He noted that livestock has a significant share of agricultural products are seen by many to have been expanding and contributing about 20 percent to gross domestic product (GDP).
Dr. Ceesay pointed out that with the rapidly growing population,the country’s need for animal protein is a daily demand that is becoming urgent. Adding that it is compelling people to turn to small ruminants and poultry farming for food and economic gains.
He noted that the National poultry is growing, although it is far away from meeting the country’s population demand for meat and eggs, noting that the country has a growing chicken population of over 900,000.
He went further to say that a lot of efforts are made by the present government to support youths and women with various forms of inputs for sustainable poultry.
Hon Sheriffo Bojang, president of National Farmers Platform The Gambia made an overview presentation of poultry production in The Gambia.
In his presentation, he said the poultry industry provides food security opportunities and employment for the most vulnerable populations. And as well, he added, increased poultry production andproductivity, provides a platform for youth and women employment, income
generation, poverty reduction, and attainment of food self-sufficiency.
Mr. Bojang continued his presentation by giving the
the national capacity of layers’ farm by region, the hatchery’s capacity, and the
unit background.
In a breakdown, he gave the number of commercial poultry
farms in the Greater Banjul Area for the years 2019 and 2020.
However, he outlined the challenges facing the sector
which include lack of poultry policy, feed ingredients, high cost of feed, no
standard operating procedures for feed production, storage, and distribution,
marketing of products, and infrastructural facilities among others.
In his recommendations, he agitated for the ban of
importation of products after the tourist season, establishment of agricultural lending
facilities, incentives like tax relief, commercialization of the indigenous
chicken and measuring tapes and so on.
Hon Bojang therefore urged poultry farmers to adopt a
free-cage farming system and noted that such practice will enable the chickens
to move freely and it will improve its production.
One of the participants from Basang Community Radio,
Maimuna Baldeh thanked ANAW for organising such a laudable training for
journalists while promising to disseminate the information to her community
through a Radio talk-show program.
Lamin Ndoye Kolley from Brikama Bolunda FM called on
poultry farmers to adopt free-cage poultry and note that birds have the right
to freedom of movement just like ‘we human beings move about’.
