Festus Akanbi
As the nation continues to come to terms with the ravages of flooding in many states, the International Fund for Agricultural Development-Value Chain Development Programme (IFAD-VCDP) has said it will begin dry season farming to mitigate the impact of flooding across the most affected nine states of the country.
VCDP’s acting National Programme Coordinator, Dr Fatima Aliyu, revealed the plan during the fifth implementation support mission of the Federal Government/IFAD-VCDP yesterday in Abuja.
Aliyu listed the states to include: Anambra, Benue, Ebonyi, Niger, Ogun and Taraba, Kogi, Enugu and Nasarawa.
He decried that VCDP states were the worst affected by the current flood ravaging parts of the country.
According to her, immediate commencement of dry season farming across the states is our priority to ensure food security for the rural farmers whose farms produce were washed away by the flood.
The programme coordinator identified some of the worst affected states including Kogi and Anambra among others.
Aliyu said that six out of the eight local governments of Anambra where the programme was being implemented have been inundated by flood.
She also listed some of the organisation’s recently constructed infrastructure and facilities destroyed by the flood to include processing centres, culverts and mini bridges.
Aliyu said that the disaster had not only caused colossal losses to the farmers but the programme as well as various states of the programme.
“The major activity now for us is to see how we will rehabilitate our farmers. The flood occurred towards the harvest season, especially for rice and washed away our crops.
“So, IFAD’s priority is achieving food security. How do we relieve our farmers, how do we mitigate the impact of this flood on their food security? Because everything is food first.
“Therefore, we are going to increase the number of our dry season activities this year so that it will mitigate the effect of flooding.
“This is to enable them to have some food, especially rice in their homes for consumption this year,” she said.
Aliyu said IFAD would continue to promote climate-smart agriculture it had already started.
The coordinator added, ”at the moment, we will introduce varieties of rice and cassava that are flood tolerant and have better yields and are early maturing.”
According to her, they are going to teach the farmers, other technologies, “because it is not just the varieties, but the actual grain cultivation of the crops.”
Earlier, Mrs Dede EKuoe, IFAD Nigeria Country Director, said the objectives of the mission included assessing the progress in programme implementation.
It also included the identification of the challenges confronting farmers and the development of pathways to address the challenges.
EKuoe identified as financial inclusion as the key challenge confronting farmers in the country.
According to her, ”farmers are still having a lot of challenges in accessing credit, so that is something that VCDP is working on.
”More need to be done by all the partners not just the programme, but financial institutions and all other actors to enable farmers to access finance to boost production capacity.”
The country director said in terms of progress, the VCDP programme had made significant headway in helping farmers improve their income.
“Farmers are having improved income using innovative approaches to agronomy practices which is very important because they are helping farmers learn how to produce better among others,” she said.
Also, Dr Peter Kush, Acting Director, of the Programme Coordinating Unit, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, said the wrap-up meeting was to review the progress and the challenges befalling the VCDP project.
According to him, “it is also to proffer solutions to all the identified challenges.
