News – Food Forest Gambia

October 2025

Rainy season ends, the terrain is covered with weeds. In three months, we had about 900 mm of precipitation. From October till next year July no rain is expected.
The local women’s cooperation – now called ‘Batasko’ – is established and starts with weeding. After this they will start growing all different kinds of vegetables.
A tree inventory of all the woody plants on site is completed. The exact positions are determined and fixed using GPS. This was done by the team of our local partner Green World Activist Foundation. They detected many seedlings from local hardwood trees, which can help the reforestation of the plot.

The local team and founders of Food Forest Gambia joined a three day workshop in the Kalamance region in Senegal, by the permafoodforest.com team. They and shared their ten years of experience!
After the workshop the Permafoodforest-team came to the plot of Food Forest Gambia and worked with us and the local people for five days. We did the first phase of planting, installing irrigation systems and adding organic material to the soil in the form of raised beds.
The site is now completely fenced. This work is done by local former dropouts who keep working part time for the Food Forest together with the local experts.
Also an irrigation system with eight water taps was installed by the team. They supply high quality ground water from the borehole made in March.

A preliminary design based on Permaculture is developed
Contacts were made with local women’s gardens
Contacts with local stakeholders were developed
Contacts with local and Dutch foundations are established
Contact was made with a school and botanical garden in Kafountine, Senegal, which is a good example for this project
The site is fenced with a wall of cement blocks
Local water quality is checked and a high-capacity borehole is made
Sourcing of the right plants started

50 % of the area is covered with Cashew, 50% is grassy zones with some solitaire West-African trees

The plot was sold by a local lady to Herman Gels and Huib Sneep, Dutch people.