No fewer than 2,242 rice and cassava farmers in Taraba state have received fertilizers, herbicides and other inputs from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), under its Value Chain Development Programme (VCDP).
Taraba State IFAD’s Programme Coordinator, Irimiya Musa, on Friday in Jalingo, told the News Agency of Nigeria that the VCDP thrives within the matrix of the development partner’s aim to support local farmers through its matching grant system to boost food crop production in 2016.
According to Musa, a total of 7,514 bags of NPK fertilizer, 2,563 bags of Urea and 8,564 litres of herbicides were circulated to the farmers in five selected Local Government Areas (LGAs) of the state. The beneficiary LGAs are Wukari, Takum, Gassol, Ardo-Kola and Karim-Lado.
Speaking on specific statistics according to each LGA, Musa gave the LGA distribution of the beneficiary farmers as Wukari – 603, Takum -478, Gassol- 556, Ardo-Kola -503 and Karim-Lamido -101.
Explaining the matching grant system, Musa stated it was a scheme in which individual farmers from their various cooperatives provide half of the required inputs needed for the farming season while IFAD provides other half. The central objective of the VCDP is to support the farmers to increase productivity by viable means including farmstead expansion.
“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.
A rice farmer from Nwaddah in Karim-Lamido, Mr Atthanisus Maiyaiki, who benefited from the inputs support of IFAD-VCDP through the matching grant system told reporters how the scheme helped grow 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.
Culled from AgroNigeria
