Overview

SantaZ Organic Farm is a small-scale, diversified fruit, vegetable and livestock farm owned and operated by Sang Mendy, a renowned journalist, journalism trainer and an agriculture enthusiast. Sang’s passion in agriculture sooth up after he represented The Network of Agricultural Journalists at the 2012 International Federation for Agricultural Journalists-IFAJ in Stockholm, Sweden. The search for greener pasture, un and underemployment are the factors that force young people to take to the dangerous journeys mostly referred to as irregular migration. Over the years, The Gambia has become one of the biggest exporters of economic migrants. The factors highlighted above are the reasons why young people take to this perilous journey. Support-driven development programmes focusing on agriculture would have drastically decrease un or underemployment because about two or three out of every ten Gambians take a fruit or two daily and about six out of ten dishes are served in The Gambia with vegetables, dairy or poultry products. Agriculture would have become an enterprise creating high paying jobs for young people thus burying the notion that farming is not a worthwhile venture. The Gambia is blessed with arable and fertile land unfortunately approximately only one in every 1, 000 people are into crop, vegetable, livestock, or poultry production. Most Gambians see farming as is a doom and gloom profession; one destined for the poor. There are few farmers though who are creating employment opportunities and helping curb irregular migration. Despite all these, convincing young people, or even people with the right finances to venture into some sort of farming remains a challenge. Sadly too, most of the tropical fruits, vegetables and dairy and animal products consumed in The Gambia are imported. SantaZ Organic Farm saw this gap and went into agriculture to help curb irregular migration by creating employment opportunities for youths.