Faced with the challenges of food security, youth unemployment and irregular migration, H.E. Madam Marie Sock Jabbie ,candidate of the Alliance of Social Democrats (ASD), is proposing a profound transformation of Gambia’s agricultural model.
As part of her youth empowerment programme, the candidate is advocating for highly mechanized agriculture capable, in her view, of meeting the needs of a population of approximately 2.8 million people.
We cannot feed 2.8 million people with hoes and cutlasses. That era is over,” Marie Sock Jabbie says, calling for a transition from largely subsistence farming to a modern and genuinely industrial agricultural system.Mechanization and technology at the heart of the vision
At the centre of her proposal is an ambitious agricultural modernization programme. Tractors, combine harvesters, modern processing facilities, agricultural drones, soil analysis, smart irrigation systems, solar-powered greenhouses and cold-storage infrastructure are among the solutions she is putting forward.
The candidate also wants to redirect youth training towards agri-technology and modern agricultural professions.
The objective, she explains, is no longer simply to train young farmers, but to develop a new generation of agri-technicians capable of using modern technologies to increase productivity, improve yields and develop competitive agricultural value chains.
According to Marie Sock Jabbie mechanization could enable a young farmer to manage up to 50 hectares, with the long-term goal of reducing Gambia’s dependence on food imports, particularly rice.Making agriculture a driver of economic growth
Beyond agricultural production, the ASD programme seeks to position Gambia as a regional hub for business, logistics and agro-processing.
Marie Sock Jabbie believes that the country’s small geographical size can become a strategic advantage, particularly because of its air, maritime and land connections with regional markets across West Africa.
The strategy is also presented as a response to the economic causes of irregular migration, particularly the phenomenon commonly known as the “Backway.
For Marie Sock Jabbie, the solution is not simply to ask young people to remain in a traditional and low-productivity agricultural sector. Instead, they should be offered genuine economic opportunities based on technology, agro-processing, entrepreneurship and wealth creation.“Mechanized agriculture makes us a nation
The message of the Alliance of Social Democrats is therefore built around a clear conviction: modernizing agriculture must become one of the main engines of Gambia’s economic and social development.
Primitive agriculture keeps us poor. Mechanized agriculture makes us a nation,” Marie Sock Jabbie declares, calling on Gambians to join her movement around what she describes as a “revolution of change.”
Through this vision, the ASD intends to make agriculture, youth and technology the three pillars of a new strategy for food sovereignty, job creation and sustainable economic development in Gambia.
Moussa Diba
