Final evaluation : Gambia mixed farming and resource management project

Final evaluation covers the period 5/81-3/86 and is based on document review, site visits, and interviews with project personnel and farmers. The project experienced numerous delays in getting started, and operations were further delayed for several months following an attempted coup in 7/81. However, 1984 and 1985 were more productive years, following a midterm redesign which deleted most activities in land use planning as well as a component to deliver carts on credit to farmers. The project initiated and pursued research - numerous varietal and feeding trials; and baseline, cattle herd, marketing, and farm management surveys, including a range inventory on 485,845 ha - but its overall strengths and worth rest with its wide-ranging extension efforts. Accomplishments included: distributing 9 prototype cultivators for farm trials, extending deferred range/crop residue feeding programs in 4 villages, expanding maize production to over 17,000 ha, and working with 20 women's societies on intercropping demonstrations. Lacking before-and-after data, it is assumed that extension activities have led to lasting accomplishments, and recommended that the maize production package be extended beyond progressive, well-to-do farmers to the majority in the maize growing region. In terms of rural acceptance of specific measures, it is recommended that a number of project elements are sustainable and worthy of continued efforts, inter alia: maize/fertilizer trials; varietal research on maize, forage grasses, legumes, and woody forage species; seed multiplication; forage legume trials and maize/legume intercropping trials; promotion of fertilizers, cultivators, shellers, and grinders - if complemented by farm credit and modifications to the cultivator; extension of the livestock feeding program, combined with a major thrust on herd management and culling and with the establishment of a GOTG rangeland unit. Also recommended are: following the rural price/cost relationship through a socioeconomic unit, and establshing a farm credit/supply system for poor farmers; research on treating and using manure fertilizer; and cooperation among the range ecologist, forage agronomist, and animal nutritionist on an integrated development package.