Securing sustainable and resilient food systems for The Gambia

Addo, F. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2357-7649 & Palazzo, A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8167-9403 (2023). Securing sustainable and resilient food systems for The Gambia. IIASA Policy Brief. Laxenburg, Austria: PB-36

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Abstract

Co-developing resilient food and land-use systems can help bridge the gap between demand for sustainable, healthy food and attainable food supply in The Gambia.
The agricultural sector of The Gambia is predominantly rain-fed and vulnerable to climate impacts, significantly exposing the rural poor who heavily depend on it for their livelihoods to lagging productivity, food insecurity, poverty, malnutrition, and its health-related effects.
The FACE-Africa project looked into these issues and co-developed scenarios relevant to The Gambia’s food security and sustainable land-use pathways with local and international stakeholders. The project team’s recommendations for ensuring sustainable food systems in the country include the following:

- Achieving nutritional security is possible through policies that promote healthy and sustainable diets, such as the EAT-Lancet diet and the forthcoming Gambia-specific Food-Based Dietary Guidelines. Still, it requires a significant increase in either domestic agricultural production through improved yields, expanding agricultural land, or imports.
- Policies that enable farmers to access and utilize fertilizer, reduce water stress, and adopt climate-smart agricultural practices will significantly improve crop yields and local production in The Gambia.
- Investing in sustainable agricultural development through climate-smart and productivity-enhancing technologies will increase resilient agricultural production and reduce import dependency, while ensuring sustainable and healthy diets in The Gambia.

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