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Message: [QUOTE="Nehanda, post: 22805, member: 2262"] Gambia's Food Security Gets Major Boost with $10 Million Investment. The Gambia plans to steady food prices with help from a new $10 million project. The Ecowas Bank gave this money to the National Food Security Processing and Marketing Corporation, which used to be called the Gambia Groundnut Corporation. The project aims to make food easier to buy and find. It brings together different groups to help farmers and stabilize food supplies. Managing Director Momodou Njai has led big changes at the corporation. His team bought 40,000 metric tonnes of groundnuts worth over D1 billion. They raised prices to D38,000 per tonne and paid farmers right away. Mr. Njai shared his thoughts about 2024 with The Standard newspaper. He said they made many improvements this year. They hired college graduates to run their storage places. They added computers to track groundnuts from farms to their main office. The corporation plans to build new offices by September 2025. It has already given farmers 30,000 metric tonnes of fertilizer without any delays. The government helps farmers by paying D800 million to keep groundnut prices low. The team wrote new rules for how things should work. These rules cover everything from staff benefits to vehicle use. Instead of hiring outside help, they did this work themselves. They tested smart farming in two areas. They used water-saving methods and worked with Dutch experts to grow better crops. They hired two farm experts from the local university to learn these new ways. The year 2025 looks bright for the corporation. They're building power plants that will make extra power for the country. They plan to make cooking oil and sell it locally and abroad. They want to start making soap, peanut candy, and process cashews. The new $10 million from Ecowas Bank will help bring rice, sugar, and cooking oil to The Gambia. This should start in early 2025. The money will help keep these foods at prices people can afford. Fertilizer costs remain high because of world events. The government pays half the cost to help farmers, but without this help, each bag could cost D2,000. Mr. Njai wishes he had started using computers earlier. But he said they fixed many other things first. He thanked his staff and the farmers for their help. He believes The Gambia needs to grow more of its food because buying from other countries costs more each year. [/QUOTE]

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