Gambian young technopreneur venture into sustainable agriculture.

By Wuyeh Jobe.

Wuyeh Jobe - Gambian Young Farmer and Computer Scientist

Farming – A venture that can make our Africa a food basket for the world, but shunned by many youths across the continent- A story from West Africa

I started farming when I was a little over the age of 12 years. Since then, I join my family on the farm each farming season to help contribute my quota in food sufficiency at home. I hated it. I hated it because it was very tedious and less rewarding for me. What made me hate farming, even more, was the fact that it was used as a punishment in school. I have seen some of my colleagues come to school, and the best punishment they could get was to be given a cutlass and asked to cut the grasses in the school. Any student who makes the mistake of not irrigating his portion of the school farm was given a punishment that he would never forget. These encounters with farming made me hate it. So, I do not miss on any chance to stay away from the farm. I used to make up event names and excuse myself from the farm in the name of attending them. At some point, during the farming seasons, I feel terrified when daybreak is approaching. Fast forward, in 2015, I won the Mastercard scholarship at Ashesi University in Ghana. I rejoiced. It was the end of my farming “career”. So, I thought.

At Ashesi, I study Computer Science. It is a field that I had wanted to study for a long time because, to me, it will give me the chance to contribute to technology in my country, the Gambia. In my second year, however, a realization dawned on me, and that is many youths shun agriculture because it is not a lucrative venture. This realization was confirmed by an online research I did. But even more thrilling was the fact that this problem of young people shunning agriculture cuts across the continent. In the Gambia, however, the problem was more dramatic because the problem has caused a reduction in national food production. The youths of the country have entrusted the foundation of our food security system to the old and the feeble of our communities and dominated every other sector. So, we are faced with a crumbling food security system. This has to change, I thought to myself one day, and it is us, the youths of the nation, who should spearhead the change. Agriculture has become my passion henceforth. But how do I get to get other youths to engage while improving food security?

I sought to understand the problem deeper. I solicited the help of the Ashesi Design Lab to take the project through the design thinking process. I got to understand that, in fact, the problem of people shying away from agriculture is grounded in three reasons: Our education system does very little to show student the connection between what the learn in class and how it is applied; Youths have a negative perception about agriculture at an early age; Indeed, agriculture provides a meager income for farmers. To solve these problems, GamFruits was born.

GamFruits is farm that will produce and sell healthy, nutritious and affordable fruit to improve food security; provide practical training on agriculture to primary and junior school students to enable them to see the beauty in farming and inspire them to engage in it; provide a hub for farmers to discuss the challenges they face and come together to address them; and with the use of technology, provide accurate, reliable and up-to-date information on best farming practices. We have started testing certain aspect of this model such as the food production part and the effort to disseminate information. In fact, we created a ten-minute documentary to let people in the Gambia, especially young people, know that we have the ability to create a new path to food security (see the documentary trailer here: ). Our hope is to fine-tune this model through constant learning and testing and eventually create a model that can be replicated across the country. We have started in my hometown in Western Gambia, and we are confident that, a day will come when we have GamFruits farms in every town of the Gambia providing employment opportunities to youths from diverse backgrounds. In this age of climate change, having a farm like GamFruits, which engages in food production throughout the year through organic farming, is paramount to not only eradicating hunger but ensuring national development. I strongly believe that the youths of the African continent can serve as a beacon of hope for the rest of the youths in the world because, to quote the president of Ghana Nana Akuffo-Addo, “we have within us our capacity to develop and promote the interest of our continent ourselves.”