The National Horticulture Sector Strategy - NHSS (2020-2024).

This National Horticulture Sector Strategy outlines the vision, goal, objectives, outcomes, and interventions for developing the horticulture sub-sector in The Gambia from 2020 to 2024. This Strategy highlights the importance of horticulture for food security, poverty reduction, income generation, employment creation, and export diversification, even identifying the main challenges and opportunities for each sector. The document presents the key results, outcomes, and interventions for each of the six strategic objectives, which are: 1) facilitating market-led production of high-quality horticultural produce, above all fruit and vegetables, in order to meet domestic and export needs, and to improve the nutritional wellbeing of the population; promoting agro-processing and value addition for the domestic and export markets; 3) strengthening support services and infrastructure for the horticulture sector in the area of research; 4) improving market information, business development, and access to finance; 5) building and strengthening the organisational capacities of farmers’ associations and cooperatives; and 6) putting in place a supportive policy environment, institutional framework, and data system.
Concerning the Strategy implementation and its rolling out, the document outlines the guiding principles, prioritisation and sequencing of necessary actions, institutional arrangements, monitoring and evaluation system, the implementation Plan, and the establishment of a National Horticulture Development Board to coordinate and oversee the Strategy. The Strategy defines the following measures and actions, in order to implement its objectives: enhancing production of onions, tomatoes and potatoes for import substitution; supply of fresh vegetables and fruit for increasing domestic market; strengthening a quality assurance and certification system; improvement of the horticulture sector, through the utilisation of quality fertilisers, seeds and pesticides; facilitating access to finance for horticulture farmers.