Synergos to use cassava peels to produce animal feeds in 3 states
NAN-AE-13
Cassava
By Kudirat Ogunyemi
Abuja, Nov. 2, 2016 (NAN) The Synergos, a Non-Governmental Organisation, says its project called State Partnership for Agriculture (SPA) will use cassava peel to produce animal feeds in three states.
Synergos analyst, Mr Oladapo Ajayi, said this at the commencement of Visual facilitation workshop for stakeholders on Wednesday in Abuja.
Ajayi said that the project was designed to assist people to solve the problems relating to poverty by converting cassava peels to animal feeds.
“The SPA is in three states of Kogi, Benue and Kaduna, but Kaduna has not been launched.
“Kogi and Benue focus is to transform cassava peel to animal feeds due to the excess of cassava production in those states. “
NAN reports that Synergos is a global non-profit organisation that fights poverty, and help to solve problems on health, nutrition, agriculture, education and employment.
He stated different groups organised and facilitated the process as core delivery, agriculture vision group and agriculture innovation group.
“The core delivery team is to make sure the target set by state had been met and agric. vision maps out in the agricultural interest of the state.
“All these can be achieved by training the key stakeholders on how to communicate to farmers in simple way through graphic and break the language barriers. “
Mr Micheal Agon, Project Leader in Benue, said that SPA in the state is partnering with the Ministry of Agriculture, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and MDAs to implement the project.
“Our focus is to change agriculture from subsistence to agribusiness and learn a new way to communicate with farmers.
“We also want to help the smallholder farmers to increase their income because basically the cassava peel has been wasting and spoiling the environment.
“We are bringing the transformation of the cassava peel into valuable feed for the livestock which the industries have already set up among business individuals and the company will start production soon, “ he said.
Also speaking, Mr Victor Adejoh, Project leader, Kogi, said the SPA was launched at the national level in March 2016 with the objective of turning agriculture to core business for farmers.
Adejoh said that the key stakeholders in the state meet forth nightly to discuss the challenges and opportunities in agriculture under the platform called Agric Vision Group.
“We have identified some key cluster production centres and we are currently implementing the project so as to turn waste-to-wealth among women and also engage in capacity building.
“We have develop Kogi State Agric Investment Policy which is the policy to be put in the portal to win the investors in the state and show what is happening in the sector.
“The other aspect of the project is to mainstream the nutritional agenda to the extent of engaging a consultant to support the platform on the gender as good nutrition practising and policy at the state.
NAN also reports that Synergos is partnering with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to finance the project in Kogi, Benue and Kaduna. (NAN)
ROK/MOL/AFA
Edited by Mustapha Lamidi/Felix Ajide
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