 
Contact Address Details:
Njawara
Agricultural Training Centre 
NATC Head office, Njawara Village
Lower Baddibu District
North Bank Region (NBR)
The Gambia,
West Africa
Tel no: +220 5720131
7073775
9905749
/ 5720131
Email:
natcfarm@yahoo.co.uk
Branches: 1
Directions:
Take the ferry north to Barra from Banjul.
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Information:
The idea for creating the Njawara Training Centre (NATC Gambia) came from Mr. Badarra Jobe
who is a native of Njawara Village in Baddibu and the local
village chief. It is a community led NGO which was founded in
1990 and became a registered NGO in 1997.
The agricultural complex in Njawara Village has building facilities
and working fields for training male and female farm workers
methods of using ecological agriculture to increase their
farms output, integrating farmland with forest trees, and
encouraging sustainable management of natural resources.
It is the vision of the agricultural institute that the program
will enhance the societal welfare of the rural people in the
district by encouraging income creation, small businesses,
gender equality, a reliable food supply, and stem the flow
of the young from the district's villages to the urban areas
along the West coast and Banjul. It is also hoped that knowledge
of best practices gained by the trainees will later spread
to other areas.
One example of the local impact the Njawara Training Centre
has had is in the way crops used to be set out on more elevated
farms. The local Gambian farmers used to plant their crops
in rows that aligned with the slope, which led to water and
soil erosion. This denuded the soil of fertility and allowed
the soil to spread into lowland agricultural fields. This
intermingling of soil types reduced the health and yield of
lowland rice production. The founder, Badarra, taught them
"contour farming" which meant planting crops across
the slope which greatly reduced erosion and loss of fertility.
Another example was how farmers could mitigate the detrimental
effects for certain crops of a day of no rain or a few days
of low rainfall. Aside from diversification certain techniques
that involve cultivation in exactly aligned but mini areas
for a selection of different crops linked to particular types
of seeds could mitigate losses.
Areas of the course focuses on the integration of animals and
crops, shade crop cultivation and cover planting for forage.
Farmers are also taught skills to mitigate the damage caused by
the arrival of pests that can arise as a result of these
changes.
NATC's Gambian & International
Partners:
• Agency for the Development of Women & Children (ADWAC)
• Ashoka
•
Resource Efficiency for Agricultural Production (REAP Canada)
• Freedom from Hunger Campaign (FHC)
•
Methodist Mission Agricultural Program (MMAP)
•
Organisation for Participatory Learning and Action (OPLA)
•
Saint Joseph's Family Farm (SJFF)
Overseas Donors:
• Action Aid International The Gambia (AAIG)
• Bicton Overseas
Agricultural Trust (BOAT)
• Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)
• Canada Fund
For Local Initiatives (CFLI)
• Concern Universal (CU)
• Catholic Relief Services (CRS)
• European Commission (EU)
• Methodist Relief & Development Fund (MRDF)
• Okanagan College -
British Columbia, Canada
• Oxfam America
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