THE International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) on Wednesday said that it was impressed with the implementation of its collaboration with the Federal Government on the Value Chain Development Programme (VCDP) in Niger.

Mr Carlo Azzari, IFAD-VCDP Consultant, made the remark during an interactive session with farmers in Wushishi.

The session was to prepare rice and cassava farmer groups under the programme for impact assessment later in the year.

“The FG/IFAD-VCDP has impacted positively on the participating farmers in Niger state.

“Going by their testimonies you will be convinced that the VCDP has modernised their cultural ways of rice and cassava production.

“The farmers tolds us that the intervention expanded their capacities, resulting in increased yields, so I am impressed,” he said.

Azzari, who is from IFAD Headquarters in Rome, said that the VCDP was a success in the state, added that it would encourage the farmers to do more.

Similarly, Dr Mathew Ahmed, the State Programme Coordinator, said that the programme which started six years ago has added value to the farmers.

“Today the VCDP has added value to the farmers because some of them have used their proceeds to go into livestock and fishery which was not the original design of the programme.

“Others used their proceeds to send their female children to school unlike when only male children go to school due to paucity of fund,” he said.

Earlier, Alhaji Ndagogi Kanko, Head Farmer, Kanko Rice Production Cluster in Wushishi appealed to the federal government to help them to dicilt the dam by the Upper Niger River Basin Authority.

He said that the dam was used by the farmers in the area to cultivate rice three times per year.

“This dam constructed by the federal government 37 years ago is helping us but we need to clean it to enable us get enough water to cultivate all year round,” he said.

Kanko urged government to provide the farmers with combined harvesters to ease challenges of manual harvesting which causes lose of the large quantity of the commodity.

He also called for more market linkage to ensure that the farmers sell their produce to consumers at reasonable prices.

Hajiya Maryam Ibrahim, Chairman, Ezayimion Cassava Processing Group, Lokogoma in Wushishi said that the programme exposed them to modern technology in the cultivation and processing of cassava.

“In our centre we process garri, cassava flakes, fufu, cassava flour, starch and also produce animal and poultry feeds with the cassava peels,” she said.

-NAN

BE

– June 19, 2019 @ 19:05 GMT |