GAMBIA

Summary

SRI was first introduced into The Gambia in 2000 in conjunction with thesis research undertaken by a Cornell University PhD student, Mustapha Ceesay, who was formerly director of the National Agricultural Research Institute station at Sapu, The Gambia. SRI results reported in his 2004 dissertation ranged from 5.4 to 8.3 t/ha depending on variety and spacing. Ceesay, who is currently Assistant Director General in charge of Research and Development at the National Agricultural Research Institute, Gambia, continues to promote SRI in his own country as well as other African countries, including Egypt and Ghana. As one of 13 participating countries in the World Bank-financed regional project “Improving and Scaling up the System of Rice Intensification in West Africa” (SRI-WAAPP) that formally began in January 2014, The Gambia participates in the project in regional workshops, trainings and meetings is undertaking nationally funded SRI activities through the WAAPP (See SRI-WAAPP website and Gambia page on the SRI-WAAPP website). The map on the right shows 23 SRI-WAAPP sites currently in The Gambia.

Progress and Activities

2012-2016
  • arrow SRI-WAAPP and CNS-Riz Conducts Support Visits and National Training-of-Trainers[December 2015] SRI-WAAPP and CNS-Riz (the organization that oversees the SRI-WAAPP project, and is based in Mali) conducted a support visit to the Gambia, with meetings with the Ministry of Agriculture and Peace Corps, visits to farmers fields in the Central River Region, and a national SRI training of trainers held at the Sapu Agricultural Research Center in Central River Region. Participants included farmers, researchers, extension / advisory agents, Peace Corps, and managers of several of the President of Gambia’s own farms (he has a network of large farms around the country). A feature article on one of the participants, Kinsa Sidibeh, has been published on the SRI-Rice website. An article on the SRI-Rice visit to Sambel Kunda (see photo at right) appears in the PeriodiCALS magazine.
2012-2014
  • arrow Regional Project to Scale Up SRI Formally Launched[January 1, 2014] As one of 13 participating countries in the World Bank-financed regional project “Improving and Scaling up the System of Rice Intensification in West Africa” (SRI-WAAPP) that formally began in January 2014, The Gambia participates in the project in regional workshops, trainings and meetings is undertaking nationally funded SRI activities through the WAAPP. Part of the larger and on-going West Africa Agricultural Productivity Program (WAAPP), SRI-WAAPP grew out of demands for technical and training assistance in SRI from most of the 13 countries, which resulted in a commissioned project development with an initial regional workshop to design the project in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso in July 2012. The first phase of the project is running from January 2014 – June 2016. For more information about the SRI-WAAPP project view the project website and the project brochure. The project’s Regional Coordination Unit is a partnership between Mali’s National Center of Specialization in Rice (CNS-Riz) who houses the regional coordinator and SRI-Rice as the technical and strategic partner for this project, The SRI-WAAPP National Facilitator for The Gambia is Mamodou Sambou, who works at the National Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) at Sapu. For more about SRI activities in The Gambia through the SRI-WAAPP project, visit the project’s page on The Gambia. Since the project’s initial planning workshop in 2012, Liberia has participated in the numerous regional workshop (see reports for the various national and regional SRI-WAAPP activities).
2002-2006
  • arrow National Agricultural Research Institute Trials Continue at SapuMustapha Ceesay, who is currently Assistant Director General in charge of Research and Development at the National Agricultural Research Institute, Gambia, received a Cornell Ph.D. degree in crop and soil sciences, undertaking demonstration trials on SRI at Sapu in The Gambia. SRI results ranged from 5.4 to 8.3 t/ha, depending on variety and spacing. This compares with usual rice yields of 2 t/ha (see Ceesay’s 2004 PhD dissertation and related 2003 paper presented at the Northeastern Branch of the American Society of Agronomy meeting, Burlington, VT.)
  • arrow Gambian Farmers Undertake SRI Trials in 2002In 2002, ten Gambian farmers who had observed the Sapu trials tried SRI methods on their own farms, dividing a field in two portions, to practice SRI on one half and conventional rice growing on the other. The average SRI yield was 7.4 t/ha (see paper presented at the Sanya conference) compared with 2.5 t/ha on the other half, where the only difference was crop management, not farms or farmers.

Reports and Articles

Research and Evaluations

Web Modules and Presentations