One hundred and twenty one thousand small holder farmers in nine states have benefited from the federal government’s partnership with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) -Value Chain Development Programme (VCDP).
The national programme coordinator of the programme, Fatima Aliyu, made this known during a supervision of the programme in Lafia, Nasarawa State.
She said the beneficiaries were drawn from 63 local government areas across nine states in the programme aimed at increasing rural household incomes and food security.
She listed the states to include Nasarawa, Anambra, Benue, Ebonyi, Ogun, Niger, Taraba, Kogi and Enugu. The FGN/IFAD – VCDP was initially implemented in six states of Anambra, Benue, Ebonyi, Ogun, Niger, and Taraba, but was expanded to include three additional states following availability of fund.
According to her, the programme’s area of focus are production, processing and marketing of rice, cassava and other crops on a sustainable basis.
“The main objective of the VCDP is to improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in our benefiting states, and today we have visited our project sites and carried out assessment of these projects that are being managed by the farmers.
“The beneficiaries are farmer groups and cooperatives, and all the facilities belong to them and are meant for their use to improve their livelihoods.
“In all the interventions, the farmer groups paid for 30 per cent of the total cost of the equipment bought for the rice and cassava processing. This is to allow them gain full ownership of the equipment.
“We give priority to women and youth. We are happy that most of them are now employers of labour, they are creating wealth and contributing to the growth of the society,” she said.
Dr Aliyu explained that in all interventions, the farmers’ group paid for 30% of the cost of the equipment bought for rice and cassava processing, allowing them to gain full ownership of the equipment.
She called on the beneficiaries to sustain the production, processing and marketing of the rice and cassava value chain even at the expiration of the programme.
She revealed that VCDP put in place a Rice Innovation Centre for processing rice in Ashangwa community in Lafia Local Government Area of the state as well an aggregation centre for the storage of farm produce, among others projects across some LGAs of the state .
Also speaking, the director, Project Coordinating Unit, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, Kush Peter Kukwi, expressed satisfaction with the level of the implementation of the project in the state.
Earlier, the Nasarawa State Programme Coordinator of the VCDP, Eunice Adgidzi said the programme commenced implementation in the state in July 2020 across communities in Lafia, Doma, Wamba, Nasarawa and Karu local government areas of the state.