Ballingho Women Farmers: “We will not vote in Elections again”

Ballingho Women Farmers 

The women of Ballingho Village in the North Bank Region of the Gambia on Monday, 22nd July 2024, have said that they will not vote again during elections in the Gambia.

Ballingho, a fishing village inhabited by farmers and fishermen, is 9 kilometres away from the administrative town of Farafenni in the North Bank Region of the Gambia.

The women expressed their disappointment on how they were neglected and abandoned by the Government of the Gambia in terms of development and providing them with the basic amenities of life.

The women Farmers led by Hoja Gaye said they have been farmers since they were teenagers using traditional wooden tools. She said it is 2024, and old age has caught up with them and they can no longer use those wooden hoes or bend to do their farm work. She said they were expecting help from the Gambia Government as electorates who voted during elections. She said that since they were in their teens to date, they didn’t receive help from the Government.

“We are poor farmers and we can no longer afford farming tools such as tractors. We cannot afford pesticides, fertilizer and seedlings and the Government we voted for to bring us these things has neglected and abandoned us to our misery,” she said.

She said, “We are rice farmers with hectares of land to farm on and feed our families, pay bills and take care of our health and that of our children but how can we do all that when we do not have the financial muscle to buy all that is needed for us to do our work”.

Mama Sabally said since the Farming season started, they have been expecting help from President Adama Barrows's Government in terms of Seedlings, tractors, power tillers, pesticides, and fertilizer but instead, they are the ones running around to get these things for themselves.

“We used our hands to prepare a rice nursery, transplant it in the mangroves, weed it, harvest it and use a log to remove the grains due to lack of machines.”

“We vote to get development, but if we cannot get that, then there is no need to vote. The last time President Adama Barrow came here, we showed him the road and the issues affecting us in the village. He made promises and left but we did not still hear from him and his Government,” she said.

Matida Dibba said the village is in dire need of water and electricity. She said NAWEC came last year to do some measurements, and they left, and since then, they have not seen or heard from them. She said there is only one solar-powered borehole that supplies their women's Garden, the Primary School and the entire village with water. She said during the dry season, when the village has water, there will be no water in the Garden or the school leaving them struggling to feed themselves and their families.

She said sometimes during water shortages in the dry season, they fight each other just to get drinking water.

“In the dry season, our Gardens lack water, seedlings, fertilizer, Pesticides and even if we manage to get those things, the cattle will break into the gardens due to the poor fencing and destroy our vegetables,” she said.

She said the village's only clinic has no drugs, electricity or water. She said when their women went into labour, they put them in tricycles, and the traditional birth attendants would accompany them through the poor roads on the forest path which is 9 Kilometres to Farafenni Hospital. She said some women give birth on the road to the Hospital.
She said there is no electricity in the village. She said it was their sons and daughters in the Urban centres and Europe who contributed to installing solar-powered street lights in the village.

She added that due to the poor nature of their roads, they find it difficult to access other villages like Farafenni to sell their fish and vegetables. She said they pay D150 or more for a motorbike to transport them to Farafenni.
She said there is no milling machine for rice, groundnut, and coos and if they need those services they have to pay D150 or more to go to Farafenni and get it done.

The women of Ballingho said all they wanted was help to ease their lives and livelihood. They said some of them are widows who are left with a large household to feed and cater for. They have farmlands waiting to be worked on but they do not have the capacity or the tools and ingredients needed to do the job that will give them a bumper harvest.

They called on the Government, NGOs, UN Agencies on agriculture, Philanthropists and Individuals to come to their aid and support them to feed their families. 

Author: Halimatou Ceesay