FAIR Farms Gambia

While we’ve been quiet online, we have been hard at work at our new FAIR Farms Gambia location.

As we always say, farming is a unique business. It takes a LOT of startup investment into infrastructure and the land, and often, you won’t see those investments payback for several years as the farm develops into a sustainable ecosystem. That investment looks like water, fencing, housing, animals/plants, and equipment – and you’ll hear FAIR Farms’ experiences investing later in this newsletter.

It also takes careful management, stewardship, or quite simply care, for the land, soil, plants, and beings connected with that land. People approach farmland management in many ways, and our decision to work with the land’s existing resources and natural systems meant our land management requires skilled labor and takes a long time. In return, our farming practices synergize with our ecosystem – key to achieving the long-term impacts FAIR Farms is designed around. Healthy foods, healthy ecosystems, and healthy communities with inclusive economic opportunities.

So a little recap of what’s been happening on the farm these past few months!

• January-March 2025: preliminary land management

  

  

  

• April-May 2025: infrastructural developments

  

  Like all Gambian construction, we started by making cinderblocks – to be developed into housing, fencing, and other structures across the farm. Everything is done by hand, and you can see our hired team mixing sand, cement, and water to create cinderblocks on the farm.

  

  All farms need water – so in late June/early July we installed the farm’s first borehole, working again with a local team

  A video of the borehole drilling team at work, narrated by Sulay Camara. A careful, full-day process resulted in a clean, deep water source for FAIR Farms (video taken & shared with consent, as always)

  

  And we built a bantaba – a ‘meeting place’ on the farm for our visitors and workers. Providing much needed shade and a reprieve from the heat, this bantaba is our first on-farm classroom.

• May-July 2025: Container Shipment

  All farms need supplies, and for YEARS now we planned to send a full shipping container of supplies from USA to The Gambia. Fortunately for us, that day finally came.

  International shipping is no easy feat. We have so many people to thank for their help!

  • Keystone Homebrew Supply – owned and operated by co-founder Brianna’s mom, the knowledgable homebrew enthusiasts of Keystone put their skills into container loading, staging all the farm materials on-site, carefully prep-packing on pallets, and working through the early morning on the container load day
  • Our Philadelphia Community – you know who you are! So many people donated supplies and helped with packing prep, including driving a full U-Haul from Southern Jersey to our load site at Keystone.
  • Ol’Dirty Bikes – a unique small PA business refurbishing old bikes and giving them new life. Kevin hooked us up with 7 street ready bikes and many extra parts. Check them out if you’re in the market for a bike!

  

  

  

  

  

And lastly, we welcomed our first international visitors to the farm this summer, in addition to our many domestic visitors.

As always, we thank you for your support as we build FAIR Farms for Gambians and by Gambians. Subscribe to our newsletter for more of this in your inbox!