2,242 rice and cassava farmers with input in Taaraba under its Value Chain Development Programme (VCDP) has been empowered by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
The state IFAD Programme Coordinator, Mr Irimiya Musa, on Friday in Jalingo told News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the support was through its matching grant system to boost food crop production in 2016.
Musa said in five selected local government areas of the state which are, Wukari, Takum, Gassol, Ardo-Kola and Karim-Lado, a total of 7,514 bags of NPK fertilizer, 2,563 bags of Urea and 8,564 litres of herbicides has been distributed to farmers.
The coordinator gave the distribution of the farmers as Wukari – 603 farmers, Takum -478 farmers, Gassol- 556 farmers, Ardo-Kola -503 and Karim-Lamido -101 farmers.
The matching grant according to Musa is a system where individual farmers from their various cooperatives would provide half of the required inputs needed for the farming season and IFAD would provide other half.
He said that the inputs support programme was aimed at giving the farmers a helping hand to expand their farms for increased productivity.
“The matching grant system is meant to aide farmers to expand their farms for increased productivity and improve their standard of living.
“This is in line with the overall goal of the IFAD-VCDP which is to tackle poverty among rural farmers in the state,” the coordinator said.
Mr Atthanisus Maiyaiki, a rice farmer from Nwaddah in Karim-Lamido, who benefited from the inputs support of VCDP through the matching grant system told NAN that the assistance enabled him expand his rice farm.
“The programme assisted me with six bags of fertilizer– four NPK and two urea and I added six bags which were applied on the two hectares of rice farm, which is doing well,” he said.
Maiyaiki thanked IFAD-VCDP for helping him turn around his fortune through series of training on agronomic best practices and inputs support.
Posted by Juliet Ekwebelam
