An assessment of the determinants of gambia's agricultural exports performance

Abstract

Due to the contribution to earnings from foreign exchange and the total labour force which stands at 70 and 75 percent, agriculture ranks high as one of the main sources of income for the Gambia. However, her agricultural exports - majorly groundnuts, cashew nuts and fisheries - have been subjected to quantity, price fluctuations and consequently low competitiveness in the international market. For this reason, this study assessed agricultural export performance of the Gambia with data from the Gambia Bureau of Statistics (GBoS), the Ministry of Trade Industries and Employment of The Gambia (MoTIE) and other literature. The study concluded that in the Gambia, economic growth and agricultural performance are related and move in the same direction with output level, trade openness, competitive of produce in international market among the key factors that determine agricultural export performance in the Gambia.