Reports say Women gardeners play a vital role in food production, household nutrition, and local economies in the Gambia. Yet they face a wide range of structural (land rights, credit) economic (market), infrastructural inadequacies(water, fencing, storage), environmental, and social challenges that limit their productivity and livelihoods.
Addressing these challenges through improved irrigation and storage, market access, and gender-responsive activities, the Recclum project embarked on a massive transformation of the Bulock women garden as one of its pilot demonstration site. Substantially, the project improve productivity for these women and their communities through various support.
The latest move is the construction of a Cold storage facility which completes the infrastructure advances by the project. Officials led by Professor Sidat Yaffa, Principal Investigator, Thursday 8th January 2026, inspected the facility ahead of its inauguration. Funded by BMFTR, of the Germany 🇩🇪 through the UTG/WASCAL initiative,the cold store has a solar panel capacity of 250 watts and eight modules, giving a power of 3.6kw. An Inverter of 6.2kw, battery bank of 10kwh is accompanying the system.
The Cold store seeks to address the following:
- Reduction of Post-Harvest Losses
- Increased Income and Better Prices
- Improved Food Security and Nutrition
- Support for Women’s Economic Empowerment
- Strengthening Agricultural Value Chains
- Employment and Community Development Climate Resilience
As the Recclum feasibility study is nearing closure, beneficiary women return gratitude for the support and to be identified as one of the pilot site. They hope and pray that the initiative will be upscale across the Gambia
