Agriculture
THE Africa Green Revolution (AGRA) will support 270,000 smallholder farmers in Kaduna State to boost their production capacity, Country officer of the programme, Dr Kehinde Makinde, has said.
Makinde made the disclosure in an interview with Journalists on the sideline of formal launch of “Kaduna Maize-Rice-Soya beans Consortium Project” held in Zaria, on Tuesday.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the programme is tagged: Uplifting Smallholder Farmers Livelihood in Kaduna through Market-Driven Upscalling of Maize, Rice and Soya Beans Value Chain.
“The objective of this programme is to support smallholder farmers in maize, rice and Soya-beans value chain to improve their productivity and make more money for the market.
“We want to improve on their livelihood with commitment that their lives will be transformed and we are following-up on this as a strategy to improve on smallholder farmers and also enhance their productivity.
“In Kaduna State, for this consortium, maize, rice and Soya beans, we are targeting 270,000 smallholder farmers to be able to produce to meet the requirement of the market,” he said.
According to him, there are ready-made markets including Africa’s largest feed mill, OLAM located in Kaduna.
He encouraged farmers in the state to take advantage of the programme to improve their revenue base and contribute to national growth and development.
The official advised farmers to start looking for markets before crop cultivation, to maximise their gains.
Makonde said since the launch of AGRA by Mr Kofi Anan, former UN Secretary General in 2006, it has reached out to about 30 million smallholder farmers, 21 million directly and nine million indirectly across the continent.
Earlier, Mr Manzo Daniel-Maigari, the state Commissioner for Agriculture appreciated the intervention by AGRA, saying it was in line with the state government vision.
Daniel-Maigari, who was represented by Alhaji Sabi’u Sani-Isma’ila, General Manager, Kaduna Agricultural Development Agency, said the state government had developed policies and policy-frameworks to support smallholder farmers.
“We have recognised that the agriculture in the state is being implemented by smallholder farmers that require a lot of support in terms of capacity building, input supply and creating markets.
“That’s why Kaduna State Government came-up with various programmes from Anchor-Borrower Programme to AADS to the new agricultural farm settlements and new land development that the state is into.
“Also the changing of the laws that are guiding the operations to meet up with the current trend in terms of changing the structures from Kaduna Agricultural Development Project, to Kaduna Agricultural Development Agency.
“These are all combination of factors; and also increasing the quantity and quality of the inputs that are available for farmers, especially fertilisers which we launched two weeks ago.”
Prof. Sani Miko, the Country Director, SASAKAWA Global 2000, appealed to farmers to engage in collectivism and explore the opportunities offered by AGRA to benefit from best agricultural practices.
“We expect the farmers to work together, aggregate together and there will be an opportunity for them to aggregate on input level as well as output market level.” (NAN)
– Apr. 3, 2018 @ 16:39 GMT
AE
Tags: 000 smallholder farmers in Kaduna State Africa Green Revolution to support 270
