Community Investment Market Garden at Madina Bransan

A summary report of the success story of the Madina Bransan Market Garden Project as part of the mitigation measures undertaken by SGO in full collaboration with a community impacted by the TSF2 land acquisition.

9/13/2013

History

As part of the proposed expansion of the SGO operations, it was envisaged to construct an additional tailings storage facility, TSF2. To accomplish this, an area of land would need to be appropriated after lengthy consultation with local villagers and they would need to be appropriately compensated for their loss. This land was outside of the mine lease and as such had not previously been compensated for.

As part of the lengthy consultation it was proposed as part of the mitigation measures (there were other projects undertaken as mitigation measures), to establish market gardens in the impacted villages. One of these villages was Madina Bransan located to the north east of the mine site.

Land was chosen by the village and a ‘Women’s Association’ of 99 ladies was formed to exploit the proposed market garden. A parcel of 1.5 hectares of land was divided up into 99 smaller parcels of approximately 120m² for each member of the association.

SGO invested approximately US$15,000 into this project under the supervision of the Community sections agronomist. The land was cleared, and then fenced by an outside contractor against the possible intrusion of grazing stock. Smaller individual parcels were marked out and suitable artisanal farming tools were supplied along with pesticides, fertiliser and seeds. Three traditional water wells were constructed using an outside contractor making water available for the market garden 365 days of the year.

Cost items US$ 3 Wells (traditional) 5,252 Fencing 7,730 Tools 1,666 Seeds 90 Fertilizers 330 Pesticides 96 Preparation 60 Pulverizations 84

15,308

This project was commenced in May of 2013 and the agronomist recommended planting Okra as this was fast growing, could be planted directly, and did not require the seeds to be raised to a seedling state prior to planting.

The first harvest commenced in July.

Month Harvest Kg Produced Sold CFA July 7 4070 2,035,000 August 11 9801 4,900,500 September 6 5346 2,673,000

TOTAL 24 19217 9,608,500

The Okra was sold throughout the local area, Sabodala, Kossanto, Diakhling etc. with one load going as far afield as Kedougou. To date, each member of the association has gained 97,056CFA from their production of Okra. This gain along with food security has never before been achieved at this level even when NGO’s have attempted similar projects.

The Future

The long term objective is to enable the association to be totally self-supporting (sustainable), as such an education program will commence towards the end of October (end of the rainy season), to include budgeting, forming a cooperative, seed retention, product diversification (onion, lettuce, cucumber, peppers, chillies, tomatoes, aubergines etc.) led by our agronomist.

The other market gardens in the villages also affected by the land acquisition for TSF2 have seen the success of the Madina Bransan project and are now clamouring to have their market gardens ‘come on line’ as soon as possible.

There is a degree of market already available locally with the SGO/SMC employees who live in the surrounding communities but as the capacity in the local area grows for food production there will be a need to find additional markets as there will be an eventual saturation. In developing our relationships with organisations such as USAID it is envisioned, with their aid and expertise, to increase the market opportunities to the increasing food capacities of these burgeoning cooperatives.

On the next page can be found a letter from the President of the Association of Women from the Madina Bransan village expressing their heartfelt gratitude towards SGO for the market garden etc.

The translation reads as:

“In the name of the (Madina Bransan Women’s) group, we thank you for having given us a cattle water service, a market gardening area, a grain mill, a poultry project among others.

Your assistance contributed to women’s work relief, improved food quality for the population and increased daily revenues. We want to express our gratitude and collaboration with your mining company”.

This has been a collaborative project with the Community team at SGO, led by Issa’s team and the willing participants of the women of Madina Bransan. Without both parties inputs this project would not have succeeded.