NAN-H-46
Beneficiaries
By Kudirat Musa
Moudire (Adamawa), Nov. 19, 2017 (NAN) Beneficiaries of the FADAMA III Second Additional Financing (AFII) programme in Girei Local Government Area (LGA) of Adamawa on Sunday commended the programme for its impact on their lives.
Mr Hammaji Umar, the spokesman for the beneficiaries in the livestock sub-sector, conveyed the commendation in Moudire when the FADAMA III (AFII) mission team visited the local government area.
He said that Girei LGA had four host communities with 160 beneficiary households, adding that the 40 beneficiary households in each community were identified with the help of the community leader.
“The intervention is on the Food Security and Livelihoods Emergency Support Project, the FADAMA officials started with the food security aspect because they believed that if they give us inputs and no food to eat, we would definitely eat the inputs.
“ FADAMA provides food items for us to eat before going to farm; we are now in the livelihood phase of the project which involves livestock and inputs.
“Any farmer who wanted to go into crop planting was given all the required inputs and livestock farmers were also given either four goats, sheep or rams with feeds.
“They have completed all the inputs disbursement in that phase and we have acknowledged that we received them all,’’ he said.
Umar said that the intervention had really changed the lives of all the beneficiaries, adding that FADAMA was the best project in the country.
He, however, urged the World Bank and Federal Government to initiate more programmes for the residents of the neighbourhood.
Mr Garba Mohammed, a beneficiary in the crop growing sub-sector, also lauded the FADAMA programme for encouraging the returnees to go back to farming after losing everything to the Boko Haram insurgency.
“I received maize seeds and fertiliser with capacity building and advisory services.
“Under the FADAMA III (AF II) project, I had a bumper harvest of 40 bags of maize on one hectare of farmland and my income has increased significantly.
“We are planning to do dry season farming and we have started preparing the land; we will definitely have good yield by replicating our experience in the rainy season farming,’’ he added.
Mohammed urged other beneficiaries to endeavour to make good use of the inputs they received under the programme and also think of how to multiply them in order to make life better for them thereafter.
Also speaking, Mr Usman Abubakar, the Public Relations Officer of Girei LGA, said that the FADAMA III (AFII) programme had appreciably improved the living standards of beneficiary households in the communities.
“We appreciate the assistance from the FADAMA programme and we want to assure the FADAMA officials that we are going to utilise all the things they gave us judiciously.
“We thank the FADAMA programme and we will continue to pray for sustainability of the project to enable it to record more achievements.
“The beneficiaries are overjoyed and they have been organising monthly sanitation exercises to show their appreciation to the government for the intervention,’’ he said.
Abubakar, however, said that some of the challenges facing the implementation of the FADAMA project in Girei LGA included the nonchalant attitude of other community members toward the livestock which the beneficiaries received under the project.
“Most of the non-beneficiaries believe that the animals are government properties which can be stolen or handled anyhow.
“We have series of cases in the police station regarding the theft of livestock, food items and other livelihood materials that were meant for the beneficiaries.
“Besides, most of the beneficiaries in the crop category need irrigation facilities for dry season farming because the tube well they are using is far from their farms, and it is not even sufficient for them,’’ he said. (NAN)
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