By Ruth Oginyi
Sunday Ituma State program Co-ordinator IFAD VCDP, Ebonyi State yesterday said the International Fund for Agricultural Development Value Chain, IFAD-VCP will support 806 Rural Farmers for the 2023 farming season in the state.
The IFAD-VCP intervention according to him would cost about 186 million naira for the empowerment of the rural farmers on cassava, rice production, and processing for the 2023 farming season.
He spoke to Businessday in Abakaliki Ebonyi State southeast Nigeria on the intervention plans from IFAD to Ebonyi farmers for the 2023 farming season.
Mr. Ituma explained that the value chain development program is jointly funded by the international fund for agricultural development, IFAD and the Federal government of Nigeria, the state, and the local government, and even the beneficiaries and 45% of the benefiting rural farmers are women and youths.
“Over the years we have always supported the activities all through the programs of the value chain of rice and cassava. In other words, all activities that relate to the production, processing, and marketing of these two value chain crops.
“Talking specifically for this year, we have a lot of interventions that will be going to our farmers this year. Starting from the input support which we call the matching grant. We are going to be supporting 806 farmers with inputs ranging from improved rice seed, and the best varieties of cassava cuttings, we will also be supporting them with fertilizer and agrochemicals.
“This intervention only will take about 186 million naira that will go to the farmers. This is a matching grant intervention beneficiaries will contribute 50 percent of the input while the program will pay on their behalf 50% of the total value of this input.
“So that is currently ongoing in all our 8 local government areas, if you go now farmers are going to their various redemption centers to collect their inputs. Beyond that, the program will also be doing a lot of other interventions, we will be doing market infrastructure, either lock up or open shops in the selected markets across the state, this is also under going procurement process.
“We will also be supporting some processing groups, and some markets with the provision of solar-powered boreholes. This is to ensure that these processors have access to water and for all the rural communities that are where this project will be sited.
“We will also be supporting communities by building mini-bridges to create access to farmland and to market, the program has observed that in some instances we just have two communities obstructions on the road for evacuating agricultural products. And so some communities are not able to fund the construction of some mini bridges or culverts across waterways to access their farmland.
He said that cooperative societies and farmers who are into processing will get de-stoning machines and other inputs.
“To further encourage our young people to go into agriculture because the mold of the biggest drudgery we have in agriculture is because farming around here is labor intensive, the program has also identified that we will need to support our farmers with mechanized equipment. So we will also be supporting cooperative societies that are doing rice and cassava with some production and processing equipment.
” we will be supporting some groups with rice processing facilities where each cooperative society is likely to be getting one processing mill, one rice mill, one designer, and one polisher.
“Again this intervention is a matching grant intervention otherwise, the groups will only pay 30 % of the cost of this equipment while the program will write off 70 % of the cost of the equipment. That is for those that are doing rice processing”.
For those that are doing rice production, if you go to our rice field during harvesting you will see those women that are threshing rice using sticks and others, to cub the labor intensity of that activities, the program will also be supporting farmers with threshers so that when it comes to harvesting they will be able to have what we called rippers instead of using their knives to cut the rice. So we are now providing mechanized equipment that will just sweep rice and pack them together. We will even give them some stitching bag machines.
These are some of the interventions that we will be doing this year which runs into quite millions of naira for the 2023 production year. He said.
Mr. Ituma commended the governor for paying the counterpart fund for the sustenance of the program in the state.
It’s quite a number I am not sure that I was able to read out all at once but the program will be working very closely with the state government, I very proudly want to thank the state governor who very swiftly made the counterpart contribution for this year. That is why the implementation of this program kicked off immediately after he assumed office.
That recognizes the importance this government and the governor attach to agriculture as a core mandate in his manifesto. With that support we can only guarantee that we are going to implement the program to the benefit of our people and that at the end of the day, the effort will transmit to improve productivity, and our people will be fully engaged in farming activities to improve their income, youths will be employed in farming and some of the negative. activities will be curbed.
