From Maduabuchi Nmeribeh, Kano
The Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA-Nigeria) and Kano State Afro-Pastoral Project (KSADP) has commenced to showcase the $22 million project designed to increase food security, market viability and nutritional security in the state.
The project which commenced last year would be benefiting 450, 000 farmers across the state.
The Country Director of SAA-Nigeriw, Dr. Abdulhanid Gambo, who briefed journalists in Kano said the intervention is being implemented by SAA-Nigeria, in collaboration with the state government, funded by Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) with support from Live and Livelihood Fund (LLF) under counterpart funding.
According to him, the five-year project is targeted at empowering 450,000 farmers in three major segments, including regenerating agriculture, micro nutrient fortification and market oriented agriculture, geared towards enhancing life and livelihood in the country.
He said SAA-Nigeria, an international agricultural commodity value chain provider, was engaged to implement the KSADP crop productivity component, which involves Cereal (rice, maize, sorghum, millet) and vegetable (onion and tomatoes).
He further stated that, “the focus of Sasakawa in the KSADP agricultural intervention hinges on ensuring the deployment of technologies to farmers, essentially to improve high yield and sustain production of nutritional food and security.
“We managed the implementation of the project in the area of regeneration of soil health to attain maximum production. The beneficiaries are being equipped with requisite knowledge on how to add value to production in line with global best practices.
“Also, Sasakawa promotes nutrient based crops to enhance consumers’ good health. We introduced micro nutrient technologies, which are bio fortified to produce a balanced diet. Another major area we focus on is market viability. Beneficiaries are educated on what to produce.”
In his remarks, the Programme Coordinator, SAA/KSADP, Abdulrashid Hamisu Kofar-Mata stated that 270,000 beneficial farmers are targeted in the second year of implementation.
He added that, with the present figure, the programme has successfully exceeded its primary target with about 70 per cent in two years.
He emphasised that though the implementation was previously piloted in 20 local councils, it has since expanded to cover the rest of the 24 councils with the deployment of additional 900 extension workers to facilitate the implementation.
More so, the Communications Officer, SAA Nigeria, Moses Nongoatse stated that the idea behind the media field was to showcase the performance of SAA/KSADP agricultural intervention across the 44 Local Government Area of Kano state in the last two years of implementation.
