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Gambia News : Gambia hippos destroy crops
Rice growers in at least 26 Gambian provincial villages have had their crops destroyed by hippopotamus and bush pigs. Most rice farmers in the country depend on harvested crops to feed their families or cater for their other needs.
“It’s from my rice field that I feed my family as well as pay my
children’s school fees and other needs,” ‘The Point’ quoted a desperate
woman farmer, Jainaba Jallow as saying.
But farmers of the affected communities have been reeling with fears of
being faced with acute food scarcity because beasts descended on their
crops at a time when most people are yet to harvest them.
A chief of one of the affected districts [Nianija], Alhassan Cham was
equally concerned about the consequences of the rising destruction of
the wild beasts. Cham has asked the government to quickly bail out
farmers in their trying time.
Grown in the country for over two centuries, rice has always been a
staple food in The Gambia and most parts of West Africa. Rice
cultivation takes place in both dry and wet seasons in most communities
in the Central River Region [over 200 km from the capital Banjul].
However, majority of Gambians depend on imported rice for survival.
But a failure to avert the wild beasts destruction will undoubtedly
soar poverty rate [currently 69%] in a country where food poverty is
becoming unbecoming.
Despite posing threats to human life, conservation laws outlaw the
killing of hippopotamus. Few years ago, six fishermen drowned at sea
after their canoe was capsized by a hippopotamus in Central River
Division.
2119 times read
- In 1987 I found a hippopotamus skull near the old derelict colonial house near the north bank, just down river from Baboon island.
The children nearby said a hunter had been paid to kill the animal which had been destroying the rice crops.
I don't know if the Hippos might still be killed surreptitiously in this way. I can not blame the farmers for taking matters in hand on this occasion; there would have been no State aid at this time, and perhaps there still is not?
(Posted on January 18, 2008, 3:58 PM Jack)
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