FAIR Farms Gambia: an evolution in the understanding of local food sovereignty

FAIR Farms Gambia team gathers under the shade of a tree, showcasing the diverse and committed individuals driving sustainable agriculture in their community.

FAIR Farms Gambia is the new name for our partner in The Gambia. Previously known as Gambia Goat Dairy, Rockflower has been a supporter of their growth and emergence as a force for sustainable agriculture and local food sovereignty since 2019.

Started by two inspiring and innovative veterinary students from the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Brianna Parsons and Dr. Corey Spies, together with a team of mentors and advisors, Gambia Goat Dairy set out to build a quantitative and qualitative social enterprise through rigorous research and accountability. Over the last five years, through a great deal of hard work, a new path forward has evolved. Committed to becoming a hub of knowledge and shared practices, FAIR Farms Gambia is positioning themselves as a leader in innovative, community-led farming practices.

Partnering directly with Penn Vet in the early years created a novel operating structure at the university, developing a research initiative driven by community inclusion and co-creation, dedicated to addressing community-defined needs through equitable practices. Receiving a grant from Penn Global Holman Africa Research and Engagement Fund allowed the team to continue research into the blended issues of One Health, Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Agriculture. There are plans ahead for sharing more of the FAIR Farms Approach in Botswana and other countries.

Goats on the farm at FAIR Farms Gambia.

Every individual who contributed to the growth of Gambia Goat Dairy should take pride in the fact that lessons learned and acted upon have now enabled FAIR Farms to be led by Dr. Brianna Parsons and her husband and Co-Founder Sulay Camera, assuring consistent and local leadership model, with more cultural humility and ease in decisions.

The focus of the last couple of years has been to expand the scope to include a variety of sustainable farming methods such as silvopasture, irrigated vegetable and fruit tree production, and integrated livestock crop production through composted manure replacing fertilizer needs.

Understanding the complexities of access to food for communities during crises such as the 2020 pandemic, have meant that quick thinking and adaptation remain at the forefront of their work. Highlighting the need for risk reduction in food systems, FAIR Farms created “circularity” opportunities, by using “wastes” from one production system as “inputs” for another, for example composted goat manure was used as fertilizer for a vegetable garden, and edible scraps were fed to the rabbits to reduce feed costs. This also solidified traditional Gambian farming practices that have been handed down through the generations of families dependent on the land for their needs. The move for diversification was intentional to reduce risks, diversify revenue streams, promote environmental circularity and resource recovery, and grow the farm to continually serve the needs of Gambian small-holder farmers.

Recently, the rent demanded for the land FAIR Farms utilized skyrocketed, with two years' rent equating to the cost of outright land purchase in the Gambia. This situation jeopardized their operations, leading to the loss of their pilot farmland. Recognizing the importance of land ownership in ensuring the sustainability of agricultural initiatives, FAIR Farms has now embarked on a critical mission to secure permanent farmland to continue their impactful work.

Rockflower has a long term vision of a Seed to Canopy Funding Model™, which allows for those partners whose goal is to expand to do so within a trusted and safe model. FAIR Farms Gambia, is now in the Roots and Shoots phase of this Five Stage of Funding model, and we are delighted to be able to support them further in their quest to acquire permanent land for their practice.

Rockflower’s Seed to Canopy Funding Model™

FAIR Farms is now reaching out to the global community to support their cause. With Rockflower's continued support, every additional contribution will help FAIR Farms secure the land needed to sustain and expand their innovative agricultural practices. This land will not only serve as a base for their operations but will also act as a community hub for learning and sharing sustainable farming techniques that can withstand the challenges posed by climate change.

Becoming a trusted Knowledge Exchange is part of the overall goal to enhance food security in The Gambia and beyond. By providing a space for reciprocal learning and sharing of traditional ecological knowledge, the impact of this collective model will have a far reaching effect.

Key to the long term vision of FAIR Farms is the desire to build advocacy for Gambian and other African farmers to push for changes in structural inequities in the global food supply. This is hard for marginalized farmers to do alone, but when done collectively, a wave of possibility occurs.

FAIR Farms Gambia stands as a testament to what can be achieved when everyone’s voice is counted and knowledge from all corners of the globe can be respected and utilized to ensure a nourished and sustainable community is built for generations to come. Join us in supporting FAIR Farms Gambia.

Reflections on our Partner Workshop Series

In the fifteen years it has taken to build Rockflower Partners, one thing has been central to our mission, and that is to ensure that every single partner feels seen, heard and to know that their lived experiences and voices matter. Finding a way for them to translate that agency into a shared platform with access to best practices, challenges and solutions has long been a goal, but as a small team it has been tough to facilitate.  However, after the January 2022 partner survey responses made clear, now more than ever there was a need to find a way to make this happen. 

So this summer we embarked on our first Partner Workshop Series. By inviting all of our current partners from across twenty two countries to come together for a five week series of zoom meetings, they were able to learn directly from each other, as well as from Rockflower Board Directors and Advisory Board members. Each week throughout July, we hosted a conversation on the Rockflower Five Key Framework: Economic Empowerment, Maternal & Reproductive Health, Education, Access to Food & Water and Peace & Security. 

Choosing four speakers from within the partner community and the wider Rockflower network, with specific experience on the designated key, allowed for a broad but deep exchange of experiences, challenges, ideas and thoughtful connection. Each session finished with thirty minutes of open discussion in which attending partners could ask questions, contribute their own experiences, and get to know each other better. 

Many important findings have emerged from this workshop series. Perhaps most gratifying has been the overwhelmingly positive feedback from partners at their delight in being able to see themselves mirrored in so many of their fellow community based organizations and social enterprises around the world. The sense of not being alone in some of these often impossible scenarios held incalculable value for all of the participants. 

Another very important insight from the workshops was the degree to which each one provided a thread of conversation that could be woven into the following week’s key topic. Economic Empowerment led to conversations about women's power over their own bodies in Maternal and Reproductive Health, which led on to the importance of continued secondary and tertiary Education for women and girls.  In the conversation on Access to Food and Water, addressing the existential threat of climate change and the rising cost of food as drivers of conflict and instability, touched on many of the issues discussed in the final workshop on Peace and Security. 

Rockflower believes in the philosophy of “Radical Idealism, Practically Realized”. We deliberately positioned these workshops to provide an overview of the larger global perspective, but then demonstrated how armed with that knowledge, partners could use it in the precise application of practical solutions to their everyday problems. Partners sensed hope in the sharing of ideas and the meaningful engagement and connection with each other, which has led to some new substantive solutions and ideas. We are witnessing just how strongly this connective root system will impact the growth of the Rockflower garden as we build our “seed to canopy” funding model. Please read more for some of the key takeaways from each workshop. 

Economic Empowerment

Roseline, Haja, Charlot and Constance started us off with a vibrant and lively conversation on Economic Empowerment. Not surprisingly with four powerhouse African women leaders, the discussion was frank, heart centered and of course filled with a great deal of humor.   

The discussion began with an opportunity to talk about what it really meant to be “empowered”, and more specifically “economically empowered”.  An overused word in many instances, we focused on the growing need for access to capital, training and business opportunities that actually lead to funding, and the best way to access markets. This laid bare the fundamental reality of just how much women contribute to the foundational strength of the economy of any nation. 

Charlot shared her deep frustration at the misconception that African women entrepreneurs need to receive ongoing training before they can access funding. She reflected on a quote that summed it up for her:

 “The most over-mentored and underfunded woman is the African Female Entrepreneur.”

As a young mother of 16, growing up in the slums of Mukuru in Nairobi, she had trained herself on the skills of entrepreneurship out of the sheer necessity of having to feed her child. 

This was echoed by Lucy Odiwa, of WomenChoice Industries later in the Q&A section, who shared the countless number of times she had been asked to attend training so that she could “train” to be a viable candidate to receive funding, only to be told to go on another training.  Whereas men are trusted to be given the funding right from the start without the requisite “training”. 

 “The problem with the world is imagining that if we are going to give women the chance we first have to set them up for success, but they have already set themselves up for success and all you have to do is trust them and get out of their way” - Charlot Magayi 

Roseline and Haja shared similar experiences in accessing funding for their community based organizations -  African Youth Alliance in Cameroon and FOWACE in Liberia. The barriers included being unable to receive funding without an audit or extensive list of previous project impact, but as they aptly pointed out, how can you show that before you have been given funding to bring your vision to life? The suggestions of  “go create some impact and then come back and tell us how you did so we can decide if we want to fund you”, are so frustrating when you cannot do that without funding in the first place. 

Additional practical advice for the partners on the call from Roseline was to suggest that they maintain an internet presence even with the simplest of websites and/or social media. Continue to keep growing networks and always ask for referrals, this is what builds trust and confidence. 

Haja described the importance of women’s savings groups in being not only a place to learn and be mentored on business management and savings but as a way to come together and share problems and experiences. This sense of community and distributed leadership is what has inspired so many of the women to continue with the program. 

Constance was keen to express a plea to financing institutions at all levels to acknowledge the unequal processes in place for women entrepreneurs. Stop asking for collateral and instead see women’s bold visions for what they are worth. Empowerment for Constance means the ability to make decisions for yourself and this is what led to her vision for the Women Advocacy Project. To prevent child marriage in four districts around Harare, Zimabawe, finding a way to provide economic empowerment was essential. This led to the creation of Clean Girls Soap, a social enterprise, run and managed by girls who had previously been on track for child marriage. 

The conclusion: It's not very complicated - give women the money and they will return it ten fold to their communities.  

Maternal & Reproductive Health

The conversation on Maternal & Reproductive Health was extremely informative, whilst also deeply personal.  Lucy, Dr. Chris, Somto and Audrey, shared wide ranging perspectives on the cultural taboos, personal challenges and direct assault on menstrual health hygiene, family planning, and choice and consent over women’s bodies. 

Despite these organizations being very different in size and mission, they share a common goal - to ensure that more girls and young women have access to reproductive education and menstrual hygiene products, which results in greater retention in secondary school, greater accessibility to higher education and increased employment opportunities. Lucy and Audrey who both run menstrual hygiene social enterprises - WomenChoice based in Tanzania and Be Girl currently working in several countries in Latin America and Africa, shared their personal experiences as to what led to their involvement in menstrual health.  

Lucy gave a brutally honest assessment of her own experience of starting her menstrual cycle, and the accompanying shame and embarrassment that led her to want to ensure that other girls did not suffer a similar fate by developing affordable menstrual hygiene products and education materials. 

“It is really important for a woman and a young girl to understand themselves initially, first of all as an individual, to know their worth, to know how they should be handled actually…Girl empowerment is nothing dangerous, it simply tells a girl that you are free to have a dream of your own, you are free to have a vision.” - Lucy Odiwa 

Audrey, although based in Washington DC, had spent time working on cross-sectoral issues in Ethiopia and saw how menstrual health for young girls was a key leverage point in ensuring access to education and mental well being.  She shared how Be Girl is extremely focused on ensuring young girls receive the education they need to know and understand their bodies and showed us an example of the manual period tracker that Be Girl has developed. 

Dr. Chris and Somto from the Society for the Improvement of Rural People in Enugu State, Nigeria, were delighted to be able to contribute to the conversation, given that there is so much taboo around men discussing these topics. 

Dr. Chris explained, “It’s a taboo almost, to talk about issues around menstrual poverty or menstrual issues” and went on to describe how they work to address many of the myths around menstrual hygiene and the misinterpretation of religious and cultural beliefs which can sow disinformation and doubt on an already complicated topic. 

As Gender Lead for SIRP, Somto reiterated:  “The importance of men and boys can not be overemphasized …It is so important to have men and boys as allies.” - Somto Ugwu 

It was indeed extremely gratifying to see so many men on this call.  Tonny from Hope for the Future, Uganda made the extremely salient point that individuals and communities should continue to question why governments spend trillions of dollars on defense when the equivalent spent on the health and wellbeing of women and children would generate exponential benefits in security for nations. This was an issue we would revisit in our next three workshops. 

Education

Despite a great deal of progress in ensuring more girls have access to education, today there are still 130 million girls who lack the ability to go to school. One of the most devastating side effects of the COVID pandemic has been the impact it has had on girls education worldwide, particularly in countries such as Uganda where schools were closed for over 2 years. 

However, this period of time has also seen a fast tracking of many innovative solutions in the delivery of education. By upending traditional formats and looking at cost effective ways to ensure those in rural communities with little access to the internet gain access to learning, there has been a real momentum to use this crisis as an opportunity. 

With Tania, Siddique, Miriam and Dancan, we were able to hear from leaders from a cross section of understanding and experience regarding the value of education across different cultural and social contexts from Colombia, Pakistan, Kenya and the USA.

We talked about existing barriers to accessing education including the impact of poverty, access to technology and digital education and how to broaden the types of education girls receive by looking toward global future needs. 

One of the most important themes to emerge from the workshop was the concept of role models and representation. When discussing the hugely significant impact of the election of Francia Marquez, the first female Afro Colombian to hold the office of Vice President, Tania stressed how monumental this was for poor indigenous women to understand that there was actually a path out of poverty through education and mentorship, together with sheer bravery and determination. 

“It is always important that we keep representation in mind, because we cannot be what we can not see” - Tania Rosas

Another big topic was that of access to information. Dancan wanted to point out that similar to representation you do not know what you are capable of until you have a better understanding of what resources are available to you. Key to his work with Jiwo Paro is to ensure a wider distribution of information so that women can access their own inborn talent. 

Siddique stressed the importance of engaging the decision makers at the government level who have control over the gender budgets. A key component of the success of the Bridging the Digital Divide: from Colombia to Pakistan, the Rockflower pilot project being implemented by Tania and Siddique, has been the ability to act as a catalyst for the Ministry of Education to scale up the project. 

Miriam’s perspective as a lawyer brought a wider lens to the subject of Education by linking to an understanding of fundamental laws and rights, “There are laws in place for a reason, you are entitled to live a better life… and this can often lead to more political and civic engagement… If you understand your fundamental rights… then you can engage in the political process” - Miriam Foley 

But time is running out and as Tania reminded us at the end of the workshop, there are so many young people whose potential is being stymied through sheer lack of access and opportunity. 

Access to Food & Water

The number of people classed as “acutely food insecure” by the UN before the Covid crisis was 130 million, but this has since increased to 345 million due to the crisis in Ukraine. 50 million people are just one step away from famine. The rising cost of fertilizers and fuel, and the ongoing threat of catastrophic weather, is adding to an already heightened sense of fear and chaos, creating the perfect storm for social unrest, political instability, forced migration and the continued deep suffering of already marginalized communities. 

Against this rather gloomy backdrop, we had an opportunity with Brianna, Lucas, and Anandan (Twisi was unable to join us on the day) to provide some insight into the different types of food and water security issues at a local level, in the very different geographies of The Gambia, Nicaragua and India. 

Lucas and Brianna discussed their respective experiences and approaches to working as outsiders in community based programs and social enterprises. As a vet and social entrepreneur, Brianna has been able to bring her expertise without enforcing or prescribing solutions not generated by the community. Lucas shares this ethic and has worked closely with the women of L’Astillero to ensure that all decisions were participatory, in particular the budgeting and agroecology center planning.  Humility was the key word, and prompted discussion on the value of the traditional and indigeneous learned experience. 

Anandan held particular expertise in this regard,  detailing his work in ensuring indigenous knowledge on how to purify water is preserved through oral and written tradition. Local knowledge is key to transforming systems and communities. 

Lucas and Anandan also both referenced the ability of communities to build seed banks as a practical tool to ensure food security. Lucas detailed his own revelations when building the Center of Agroecology, that the reason that he could not access seeds was because they were all controlled by a few large multinational corporations. These were the same choices available to the local community of Astillero. The other partners on the call really liked the idea of seed banks and made plans to cross pollinate ideas in this regard. 

We also discussed localization vs globalization of food supply chains and the importance of diversifying farms and livestock as one form of mitigation against the effects of climate change. Brianna highlighted the difference between food security and food sovereignty, and how because of international food and trade policy so many people in emerging economies do not have ownership over their food production. Nutritious foods are cost prohibitive, for example milk is 16 times more expensive than rice in The Gambia, which is why the focus at Gambian Goat Dairy is to deliver cost effective animal source protein. 

We touched on the issue of land rights for women and referenced a recent Landesa paper "Women and Dirt"  in which they make the case for gender parity in land rights as a solution to issues of food security. 

One thing was clear  - waiting for the international community to fix climate change was too much of a long shot for so many of our partners. They need solutions today. 

“If the community of Astillero waits for the global community of politicians and diplomats to solve climate change, they are all going to be dead by the time that’s done so we need to prepare for building resilience on the ground” - Lucas Worsdell

Peace & Security

By providing a broad overview as to what peace and security means in different contexts and settings, but then to show how this directly affects communities and individuals, we were able to ensure that the partners on the call could draw a line between the information shared and their daily experiences. 

Peace and Security is not just the absence of war, it is a multi-layered understanding of the needs and wants of different groups and communities, at a personal, local, national and international level. 

With Dr. Alice, Rajaa, Sahana and John, we had a wide ranging conversation on what it takes to develop systems and strategies to counter violence, greed and injustice.  All of them have deep experience and a personal commitment to building a world in which peace is paramount.

Dr. Alice delivering her remarks in French, (our grateful thanks for translation by Will Burgat)  brought us into the heart of the issue, by describing the daily task of helping victims of atrocities become survivors and then contributors in the redesign of their communities through their lived experience.  There was a deep weariness in her voice as she described the continued witnessing of rape and murder and the daily repercussions of a reality in which Security Resolution 1325 does not actually live up to its intention. There are still not enough women involved in the concrete actions to bring about peace. In 2020 she was involved in talks with armed groups in order to bring more women to the discussion but was met with push back and the suggestion that they should only come if they bring women with weapons to the talks. Her plea was to ask how the UN can find a way to insist that more women from civil society are present at the “real peace talks” not just the secondary track two discussions. 

Rajaa shared the deeply personal experience of her father, a policial and human rights activist, having been detained and tortured in a Syrian prison for almost ten years of her life. When the uprising began in Syria in 2011 she was studying for her PhD in Mathematics in the US, but returned home to Syria knowing that she had to be involved in documenting the human rights abuses. She started CCSD with a group of activists determined to see a better future for the women of Syria, and continues to engage with civil society activists, youth leaders and all those wishing to see a greater emphasis on the women, peace and security agenda. She is extremely keen to ensure that all the lessons learned from the last ten years of work in Syria be shared with those in conflict situations so that all of the rich resources and learnings can be put to good use. 

 Sahana gave us a detailed analysis of the work of bringing multi stakeholders together in order to ensure the agenda of Women, Peace and Security is put front and center in the minds of policy decision makers. She applauded the partners on the call for their bravery and willingness to imagine a better and more peaceful world and for their consistent daily work to make this a reality.  Indeed, Security Council Resolution 1325 came from women in the Global South saying to those in the North - “What you are doing is not working, we need a better way” . She also reiterated the need for a collective vision of what peace would look like, and to take a step back to assess what is working and what is not.  By being willing to co-create something better there exists a real potential for a more secure world. .  

“Women want to change the dominant security narrative  … for the benefit of everyone. We can change the narrative of what is possible by seeing through a feminist lens” - Sahana Dharmapuri

John took us deep into the reality of the “captured state” - which is what happens when war economies take hold and become a perpetual money making machine for a few corrupt individuals. In order to tip the balance for those living in these countries who want an even playing field, the importance of using the tools of network sanctions and challenging the incentive structures that reward violence and authoritarianism cannot be overstated.  John’s decades of work in the DRC meant that he was particularly in tune with Dr. Alice’s deep feelings of frustration and shared how his own journey had evolved as an activist, to focus on dismantling the means by which war machines and kleptocracies thrive. This was a timely discussion, as his piece in Project Syndicate last week demonstrated on the occasion of Secretary Blinken’s visit to the Congo and Rwanda. 

We finished with a conversation on why Peace and Security is so difficult to fund, and not just in the world of philanthropy. As the world keeps spending trillions of dollars fighting wars only to rebuild after the destruction, a tiny portion of that invested in prevention would bring untold dividends.

“It's so hard to quantify the results of investments in peace” - John Prendergast

Conclusion: 

This was just the beginning of a series of workshops that Rockflower will be producing throughout the year as we digest the conversations and dig deeper into other ways to ensure that our partners have access to a shared platform of tools, techniques and approaches that can continue to contribute to the improvement of life and well being for so many women and girls and their communities. 

We are grateful to everyone who participated and thank all of our speakers for their insights, vision and clarity. 

A Year in Review from Gambia Goat Dairy

Gambia Goat Dairy is a team of Gambian agriculturalists and Penn Vet faculty and students dedicated to creating a brighter, more livable future through creating productive and environmentally conscious agricultural systems that alleviate poverty, improve maternal and child nutrition, and prioritize community wellbeing. Since 2016, we’ve been exploring the role of agriculture in solving the interconnected, wicked global problems as outlined by U.N. Sustainable development goals:

• 1. No Poverty

• 2. Zero Hunger

• 3. Good Health and Wellbeing

• 6. Gender Equality

• 8. Decent Work and Economic Growth

• 10. Reduced Inequalities

• 12. Responsible Consumption and Production

• 13. Climate Action

• 17. Partnership for the Goals

At Gambia Goat Dairy, and through our Executive Director Brianna Parsons’ employment as a lecturer in Sustainable Agriculture at Penn Vet, we always think big about our world. Our global population is projected to increase from 7.7 to 10 billion people by the year 2050. With this, we’ll face major global challenges. Our world will need to produce more food in the next 50 years than has ever been consumed in human history. To do this in the face of climate change creating ever-growing uncertainty threatening traditional agriculture, innovations in agricultural productivity and producer resilience needed to build a world free of hunger.

West Africa is already facing these challenges, and their impact will only worsen as the region experiences some of the highest global population growth and some of the worst impacts of climate change. Currently, 23% of children under 5 years suffer from stunting malnutrition. Stunting malnutrition has intergenerational, adverse health consequences such as impaired cognitive development, decreased immune function, increased likelihood of disease, and reduced growth rates. Animal-sourced foods, like milk, meat, and eggs, have been proven to reduce stunting malnutrition, but these foods are 16-times more expensive in West Africa than they are in the U.S. These foods are more expensive for two reasons:

1. Underproductive livestock agriculture in the region - An average cow in in The Gambia produces just 3% of the milk per day that a cow in the U.S. can produce!

2. An influx of imported milk and meat products – imported products aim to fill this gap but undercut the domestic agricultural sector, by shipping excess foods produced across the globe into the region and ‘exporting’ the profits from their sales at the expense of Gambian agricultural sectors

As a result, malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies consequently plague West Africa’s most vulnerable populations who rely on cheaper carbohydrate staples to fill their stomachs. Strategic, targeted investment into productive local livestock systems is an important means of reducing malnutrition while growing a critically important domestic industry . Productive smallholder agricultural systems have widely beneficial effects on societies by creating wealth, improving environmental stewardship, promoting food sovereignty, and boosting community nutrition. We aim to create a model that works for leveraging sustainable livestock agriculture to improve holistic community wellbeing in Gambia.

Gambia Goat Dairy (GGD) is a social enterprise that employs sustainable agricultural practices to spur economic development, empower communities, and end malnutrition. We are creating a teaching and research farm from the ground-up that investigates and employs agricultural best practices to improve wellbeing of humans, animals and the environment alike. Our small-scale commercial farm will sell pasteurized, affordable dairy products, increasing access to nutritious foods for the people in our community. We will investigate innovative educational strategies to share agricultural knowledge with farmers throughout the country and ultimately expand pasteurization capacity to create a national dairy cooperative and dairy industry. We strive to achieve impact in the following key areas:

1. Improving maternal and child nutrition through access to safe and affordable, domestically produced animal source foods

2. Improving smallholder farmer wellbeing through economically viable, domestic agricultural production – thereby improving food sovereignty of the country and spurring economic development through agricultural systems

3. Empowering women agriculturalists across the food value chain through targeted agricultural and business outreach

4. Integrating youth employment opportunities and deploying youth outreach strategies to inspire the Gambia’s future generation to create attractive employment opportunities across the agricultural value chain

5. Promoting environmentally sustainable agricultural practices across the region and creating a model for environmentally responsible agriculture 

With The Gambia as the site of our pilot project, we are creating a model dairy system that can be widely prescribed to generate wealth for smallholders. GGD combines systems thinking with entrepreneurship and veterinary expertise, defining problems with data to formulate evidence-based solutions with tangible measures of impact. Understanding the complexity of the problem helps us design solutions that will work when solving such interconnected and challenging global problems. 

Our team is made up of two full-time Gambian employees – Sulay Camara and Sainey Badjie who’ve been working with us since 2018. Dr. Brianna Parsons (VMD MSEd) serves as Executive Director and helps link The Gambia to Penn Vet. Other Penn Vet faculty/alumni involved in Gambia Goat Dairy include Drs. Tom Parsons, Katrin Hinrichs, Carla Chieffo and Dave Galligan. We also support Penn undergraduate, veterinary, and professional students through in-country and research internships, and to date have sponsored eight students with five additional students planned to work with us in the summer of 2022. Lastly, we engage in strategic partnerships to amplify the impact of our work, most recently exploring collaborations with the Medical Research Council of The Gambia, the University of The Gambia, and the Banjul American International School.

Sainey Badjie and Sulay Camara

Brianna Parsons and Sainey Badjie

In December 2021, Gambia Goat Dairy was awarded a Penn Global Holman Africa Research and Engagement Fund award for nearly $200,000 over the next three years. Rockflower Fund generously supported this application with $30,000 in matching funds allocated over three years. With this award, we can finally build the teaching and research farm we’ve envisioned for the past 6 years. We’ll investigate agricultural best-practices, including animal health, husbandry, and nutrition. We’ll research the economics of smallholder livestock agriculture, to produce recommendations of methods to improve smallholder revenues, and we’ll continue researching best pasture management strategies – a critically important research area that’s been neglected in The Gambia over the past decades. All of our research projects will be designed to answer critical questions to Gambian farmers, and all our findings will be shared with the community through evidence-based educational outreach to get this information into the hands of the folks who need it the most.

And given our intimate ties with Penn Vet, a world class veterinary teaching and research institution, we ultimately plan to use our findings from our work in Gambia to create entrepreneurial methodologies as tools for stakeholders across the region that reduce risk and increase impact of home-grown initiatives. Here at Gambia Goat Dairy, we understand that the local community is often best positioned to create solutions that work. We strive to support those working in this space through knowledge sharing around a vision for a prosperous future. By recognizing the interconnectivity of global challenges like poverty, nutrition, and women’s empowerment, we can intentionally design solutions poised to promote global equity and wellbeing, and create a community of like-minded visionaries working together to create a better future.

Gambia Goat Dairy

The Gambia

The Gambia closed its borders for 21 days beginning on March 23, 2020. The Gambian Ministry of Health releases daily situation reports here.

Concerns, Challenges and Adaptation Measures

This week we had a Zoom call with Brianna Parsons and Corey Spires, Project Managers for Gambia Goat Dairy, to discuss the Gambia, the goat farm, and visions of the future.

Prior to the pandemic, Gambia Goat Dairy was conducting small-scale research on the West African Dwarf goat milk production, comparing the milk production of goats fed a veterinary-formulated diet to goats fed traditional feeds. Their objective is to create a West African Dwarf goat lactation curve—a graph showing how milk production changes over time since giving birth to offspring. This is a powerful tool for Gambian dairy farmers to manage their herds and does not currently exist for the West African Dwarf goat.

The following is a summary report by Brianna Parsons, Project Manager for Gambia Goat Dairy.

Gambia Goat Dairy, still in the early stages of implementation, employs only two Gambians at this time and has a limited outreach scope. The country itself has only a few confirmed cases, though preventative social distancing measures means the majority of businesses are closed, public transportation is limited, and citizens are having difficulty acquiring their basic needs. The difficulties faced by Gambians are in some ways similar to those we are facing in the US but in many ways, much more extreme, as lost incomes and disruptions to food supply chains exacerbate already existing food insecurity.

We wanted to share stories of how the coronavirus is impacting our employees. Even in a crisis, our goats need daily feeding and care. Our on-site goat caretaker and watchman, Sainey Badjie, has stepped up to fill this role on his own. In doing so, Sainey is ensuring our goat herd is cared for and that he and Sulay decrease potential coronavirus exposure.

Harness created by Sulay to monitor the goats’ weights

Our herdsman, Sulay Camara, significantly limited his trips to the farm and when necessary to do so, takes all precautions, including face mask and gloves. Despite being physically distant from the farm, Sulay is still thinking about farm operations. During this period of social-distancing, Sulay crafted a harness for the goats to allow for comfortable and safe weight measurements. This is a weekly process, done to monitor the goat kids’ growth to make sure each kid is gaining a healthy amount of weight. Like so many others around the world taking up new crafts and hobbies while sitting at home, Sulay got creative with his time and made a new tool to help improve our future operations.

We’ve had 10 goat kids born in the last month on the farm. Sainey is doing an incredible job making sure all the newborn goats are healthy while Sulay is missing spending time there. We are thankful for the health of our employees, their families, and our friends as we do our best to maintain farm operations during this highly uncertain time.

Update from July 2020

In response to the pandemic and prioritizing the health of their employees, Gambia Goat Dairy had to halt data collection in March 2020. 

Gambians have been dramatically affected by the coronavirus. Market closures in early weeks resulted in limited food availability, higher prices, and a loss or disruption of jobs. Public transportation fares doubled as drivers limited maximum passengers in cars and vans to half of their normal capacity. Recently, the country has begun relaxing some of those protective measures as case numbers remain low. Markets have re-opened but public transportation continues to operate at limited capacity. 

Emergency Fund

The Emergency Fund from Rockflower has supported investment in masks and protective equipment for their farm employees. Additionally, the funds allowed Gambia Goat Dairy to contract with local farmers to grow feed for next season. Many Gambians grow peanuts (groundnuts), a staple food in the region, as cash crops. After harvest, the remaining plant can be dried and produced into hay for livestock feed, an environmentally conscious way to repurpose crop byproducts. The economic impact of COVID-19 has affected Gambians through losses in employment resulting from lockdowns, declined remittances, and higher priced goods in the markets. This combination makes it difficult for Gambian farmers to purchase agricultural inputs, like peanut seeds, at the beginning of the growing season. Gambia Goat Dairy is using Rockflower’s Emergency Fund to finance the purchasing of seeds for farmers, who will grow, harvest, and sell the peanuts, and in return for the up-front financing, provide Gambia Goat Dairy with the hay-crop. Using the Emergency Relief funds in this way helps Gambia Goat Dairy to not only reduce farm feed costs for the upcoming year, but spreads the benefit of the relief fund to the agricultural families hit hard by the economic effects of the global pandemic.

Goat Dairy Farm Project

Rockflower is launching a campaign with Gambia Goat Dairy. GGD will implement a sustainable livestock system that combines modern agricultural strategies with equipment and practices tailored to the unique environment of West Africa. This will maximize the productivity of endemic goat breeds in a replicable dairy model that can be easily adapted to operations elsewhere in The Gambia and in neighboring countries. The pilot project will test sales strategies that target multiple market segments, ensuring that high quality protein products reach the populations that need them most.

The $2,500 goal will go towards establishing the pilot project of a small-scale goat dairy farm in the Gambia. Donations will provide supplies, feed and livestock to fully stock the farm.

The Goat Dairy Farm Project campaign is being led by Isabella Ward, a Youth Advisory Board member in our Catalyzer Collective.

Please visit https://goat-dairy-farm-project.causevox.com/ to donate.

Rockflower Partners with Gambia Goat Dairy

Rockflower is pleased to announce a new partnership with Gambia Goat Dairy. Their aim is to achieve food security through environmentally sustainable interventions. Gambia Goat Dairy prioritizes animal welfare and acts on community-defined need as they work to solve one of the world's toughest problems.

The first phase of their project consists of a pilot farm in the Gambia. The Gambia’s livestock generally yield 30 times less than their counterparts in more developed countries. This disparity is linked to antiquated agricultural practices and infrastructure, poor livestock management strategies, and lack of access to veterinary care in the developing world. Gambia Goat Dairy will implement a sustainable livestock system that combines modern agricultural strategies with equipment and practices tailored to the unique environment of West Africa.

Find out more about the Goat Dairy Farm Project.