Fadama III AF can take Nigeria out of recession – Coordinator
NAN-AE-13
Fadama
By Kudirat Ogunyemi
Abuja, Oct. 28, 2016 (NAN) The Fadama III, Addition Financing (AF)`s project can take Nigeria out of economic recession due to the successes and achievements recorded in almost 26 states of the nation.
Mr Tayo Adewumi, the National Coordinator of the Programme, stated this at the pre-mission meeting held with its stakeholders in Abuja on Friday.
“The success recorded in the last mission and the challenges we have tackled show that agriculture will take the country out of the recession and increase the nation`s food security.
“The programme started with six states due to the successful participation of these states and we have proceeded to almost 27 states.
“Most of the Action Plan we agreed on in the last mission has been tackled and one billion naira has been disbursed this week to participating states, “ he said.
Adewumi added that the project’s teams are going on inspection on Sunday to check the achievements, challenges and how to make progress on the project.
“Some groups are going to Kano, Niger, Kogi and Sokoto while other teams are going to Enugu, Anambra, Lagos and Ogun States.
“We have the target to produce maximally across the value chain, production, processing marketing and storage and some of the states are doing well.
“The programme also has special project for North East region to support their livelihood and promote agriculture in that region to reduce the poverty and increase agricultural production, “ he said.
NAN reports that Fadama support clusters of farmers in selected states with comparative advantage and high potential to increase production and productivity of cassava, rice, sorghum and horticulture value chains.
Adewumi said, “the project has granted the request of some states that have capacity show in their performances and readiness to add another value chain the existing one.
“For economic diversification to agriculture to be achieved, we give room to the states to handle any other value chain of their choice.
“We also trained their facilitators, smart farmers and give them laptops to make the implementation of the project easy for them and to step down the training to our farmers in the field. “
Dr Adetunji Oredipe, World Bank Task Team Leader, thanked the national coordinator for the success recorded in the project.
“The achievements of the project and the way the states performed had shown that the country will soon be food sufficient.
“When we are food sufficient, every citizen will have food to eat, their income will increase and it will increase our foreign exchange as a country, “ he said.
Oredipe urged the teams to take their time to relate with the farmers on the field, so that the bank would know their challenges and how to deal with them.
He also charged the Fadama office to always monitor the money disbursed to the states for effective ultilisation and accessibility to the farmers.
NAN reports that Fadama is a Hausa name for irrigable land, usually low-lying plains underlay by shallow aquifers found along Nigeria´s major river systems.
Such lands are especially suitable for plant, fishing and livestock production. (NAN)
ROK/MOL/AFA
Edited by Mustapha Lamidi/Felix Ajide
==========================