 
Contact Address:
Njawara
Agricultural
Training Centre
NATC
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
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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.
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
Directions:
Take the ferry north to Barra from Banjul. |
