By Andrew Shirley from The Gambia
Dried fish, rotting vegetables, fresh vegetables, herbs, spices and some things beyond description. Screaming hawkers and bargaining customers.
I wanted to experience the smells, sounds and sights of Africa again and today I get my wish in an overpowering sensory explosion.
I am visiting a large produce market to see where some of the produce grown by farmers helped by Concern Universal is sold.
Marketing. Not something all farmers enjoy or claim to be good at.
And it is the same here. Lots of aid projects have focused on helping farmers grow crops, few have helped them to market them.
Gambia is Good, a CU project part funded by UK fruit grower Haygrove, set out to change all that, and today I see the fruits, or rather vegetables, of its labours.
The majority of the produce grown by farmers participating in the project is sold to tourist hotels, which recognise the extra quality but some ends up here in this bustling melting pot of humanity.
Hands firmly in pockets, I take a deep breath and venture in.
Comments (2)
Good Morning Andrew - welcome back to blighty - at least the sun is shining. How do you feel on your return - has the optimism in your first blog entry been well founded? What future do you see for sustainable development such as the GiG project?
Comment left on March 24, 2007 10:27 AM
Posted on March 24, 2007 10:27
Hi Kathryn
Thanks for the posting. I still feel optimistic becuase I genuinely believe that projects like GiG, which don't rely on handouts and are introducing some much-needed commercial marketing skills, are making a difference.
It just needs more people to follow the example of Haygrove and Concern Universal and set up similar schemes.
What I'm more depressed about is the fact that a large amount of the problems in The Gambia seem to stem from cheap EU imports. As I said in another entry, trade may be becomig freer, but it certainly isn't becoming fairer. Any idea how to sort that one out?
Comment left on March 26, 2007 9:42 PM
Posted on March 26, 2007 21:42