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Farmers from the various farming organisations within the West Africa sub-region along with stakeholders in the agriculture sector has called on regional institutions such as West African Monetary Institute (WAMI) and the ECOWAS as well as the private sector and civil society organizations to join hands with farmers in order to form an integrated West African common regional market for farmers. They made this call in their drive to ensure food safety and security at the community level within the region.
These were among the recommendations made by farmers attending a sub-regional farmers meet which closed Friday at the Paradise Suites Hotel. The three day workshop focused on mobilizing, sensitizing and consulting civil society organizations and other stakeholders on the ECOWAS community development programme (CDP) on themes about agriculture and food security. It was organized by a coalition of farmer organizations.
Speaking at the opening of the workshop on Wednesday, The Gambia’s deputy minister of Agriculture, Hon. Momodou Seedy Kah had told the gathering that regional integration in West Africa has reached a very important stage in boosting agriculture, especially with the adoption of a Common External Tariff (CET) and the establishment of regional agricultural investment programs that will create a vibrant environment for the business sector and other important activities within the sub-region.
According to the minister, ECOWAS was created in 1975 with a vision to develop policies of its member states in order to facilitate and accelerate socio- economic advancement of the people of the region, with particular emphasis on the youth and farmer organizations.
He said economic integration was identified as the key strategy to achieve the vision of this sub-regional body, the outstanding differences between ECOWAS member states was clearly noticed in the fields of commerce, economy and political stability, including influences spanning linguistic and cultural differences and barriers and these have all been hindrances to strengthening cohesion within the organization, which is key to implementing efficient community policies.
“This approach will provide a more participative, more democratic and a more efficient approach to the regional integration process,” he said, noting that the ECOWAS’ Vision 2020 is aimed at substituting a community of peoples approach for that of a community of states.
Rising from the workshop on Friday, participants said there is the need to implement all the engagements, agreements and memorandum of understanding adopted at a community level in a timely process, implementation of the measures enabling the free movement of peoples’ and goods, eradication of troublesome formalities from law enforcement officials and agents of the water resources and forestry departments, and conformity to the Maputo engagement (10% of the budget destined to agriculture).
Other recommendations include the renunciation of practices that weaken the regional integration process mostly the temporary measures preventing imports-exports within the regional space; taking effective measures enabling the integration of the people with an appropriate implementation of the community-based policies to benefit the member states with a view to ensure full conformity to the engagements taken and the laws adopted at a community level (free movement of peoples and goods, right to establishment, customs, police and immigration formalities, etc.) as well as an accelerated implementation of the reforms in place (CET, in concordance with the agricultural and commercial policies, a common currency, a regional agricultural development fund, a code for investments and the right to do business).
Speaking at the closing ceremony, Mr. Alieu Sowe, executive director of the National Coordinating Organization for Farmers Association in The Gambia (NACOFAG) said the participants have come up with these recommendations after presentation of the various committees and a series of interesting deliberations. According to him, the objective has been to propose and analyse the contributions included in the implementation framework and in the Community Development Programme (CDP). These contributions, he said, were based on safety measures and on food security at a community level. He also said that the two main challenges concerning the role and responsibility of different stakeholders have been scrutinized in order to formulate recommendations and identify the involvement of farmers and agricultural organisations.
He continued that during the three-day conclave, they have realized the necessity of establishing an integrated West African Common Regional Market. “It is an absolute political and economical priority which results from various factors and analysis. One of the major factors is the implementation of common agricultural and business policies in conformity with the safety and food security objectives,” he said. However, the current context is being delayed by various constraints and limitations such as national strategies that have little relevance and lack proper formulation, multiple currencies and numerous work languages used in the ECOWAS region.
He blamed the lack of efficiency of the engagements taken by countries for the promotion of the agricultural sector, bad application of the laws and regulations, different potential stakeholders of the common market and little or no knowledge of the legal instruments and of the community-based regulations for further aggravating the situation.
He said persistent administrative formalities, customs and road formalities, corruption and other troublesome proceedings by law enforcement officials and by water and forestry officials, lack of support mechanisms in the occurrence of natural disasters and armed conflicts, insufficient transport infrastructure (neglected development of railways and maritime transports, bad road and vehicle standards), among others have seen to the limitations of a common regional market.
For this common market to happen then, it is necessary to adopt valued mechanisms and to market operative and endogenous practices and exchange between communities at grass-root levels, encourage the existence of funding institutions specialised in agricultural investment, provide assistance in the marketing of agricultural products (setting up of standards, certification, etc.), support producers’ economical initiatives (with fairs, weekly markets, etc.) and efficiently support insurance and guaranty mechanisms.
Lydia Sasu, a participant from Ghana and also a member of ROPPA said the sub-regional integration and common market for farmers within the sub- region will go well in their drive to attain food safety and security. She said producers currently face lots of challenges in terms of marketing and support. Therefore, there must be a concerted political goodwill from the countries and the ECOWAS Commission in order to surmount these challenges.
She said the goal of a regional market must be supported by concrete actions and a constant surveillance from the organisations of the civil society so as to enable a good appropriation of the existing advantages and potentials on the basis of proper standards. “We will mention among other potentials the existence of a rather important agricultural land potential in most of the countries of the region and production standards of excellence in a context where there is an increasing human agricultural potential as well as a great number of consumers of agricultural and food produces (420 million by 2020).”
Madam Sasu said the adoption of various legal instruments and community regulations (agricultural policy – ECOWAP, TEC, the free movement of peoples and goods, the right to establishment, courts of law, etc..), existence of relevant research institutions that may complement each other at a regional level, the increasing power of regional organisations networks from different agricultural stakeholders would develop a synergy of actions and interventions.
Another participant, Cheikh Mouhamodu Cisskho said there is a need to improve agricultural productivity and offer guaranties for employment and income-generating activities to agricultural producers. This, he said, will help in ensuring sustainable management of natural resources and offer of employment and income generating opportunities. “It is equally indispensable to establish the conditions for a proper implementation of safety and food security objectives.”
Concluding, the NACOFAG boss, Mr. Alieu Sowe said in order to reach these objectives, important efforts must be done to promote both the development of production systems using appropriate technologies (regeneration of soils, regeneration of fallow or degraded land, quality products) and the support of decentralised funding systems based on preferential rates and their reinforcement by the implementation of a guaranty, insurance and disaster fund.
“In this framework, several endogenous and innovative technologies have been identified and will enjoy particular attention in the promotion of research and development programmes and those technologies among others are the use of endogenous and sustainable methods in the protection and land regeneration, and the protection of biodiversity and land assets meant for agricultural use.”
In order to reach this objective, an investigation aiming at identifying and assessing the existent initiatives (such as credit and saving unions, agricultural and health cooperatives, agricultural banks at a regional and national level) is necessary to appreciate the successes and shortcomings and to draw the necessary teachings.