A joint team of the Federal Government and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), has inspected projects executed under the agricultural Value Chain Development Programme (VCDP) in Kogi.
The projects are located in five local government areas of the state.
Mrs. Mariatu Kamara, IFAD-VCDP Country Programme Officer, who led the team on the three-day exercise, said at Ajaokuta that the team was impressed with the impact it had made in Kogi.
It was the ninth IFAD Mission visit to the state.
Mrs Kamara said the VCDP impact in Kogi was very impressive with lots of trainings and capacity building, saying the team was very impressed with what had been done so far.
She said that with the VCDP, IFAD would like to see that linkages between producers, processors and marketers thrive.
She added that the objective of the VCDP was to ensure that women and youths were fully able to generate income on their efforts.
Kamara stressed that IFAD was complementing the efforts of the Nigerian government in agriculture to better the lives of the citizenry, especially rural dwellers.
“We really want to see the benefits of the programme, and to compare what beneficiaries’ lives were before and after it.
“’I am satisfied with what we have seen so far, though there are areas needing improvement; but so far, we are satisfied as a team.
“’This is the supervision mission of the Federal Government of Nigeria and IFAD. We have done our supervision and will make holistic recommendations to the government for the benefit of the people, she said.
In his remarks, National Coordinator, IFAD-VCDP, Mr Garba Bala, said one of the main focuses of the programme was emphasis on gender; the participation of women and youths in all IFAD projects.
According to him, the focus of the programme is to generally empower rural dwellers to improve their methods of farming, production, income, and access to finance.
He advised beneficiaries to exploit the system, follow the training procedures and make sure they complied fully with instructions of the Commodity Alliance Forum (CAF).
CAF and VCDP partnership is designed to provide targeted smallholder rice farmers with access to a reliable and profitable market for their produce, and in turn stimulate farm-level productive investments.
The partnership leverages commercial relationships and market experience to remove pricing distortions due to cyclical glut.
On his part, Dr Chris Peter-Kupe of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture said the supervising ministry was very much satisfied with the level of achievements of the programme.
“We are hoping to move at the pace to add value to our expectations in terms of food security, job and wealth creation,’’ he said.
The Kogi State Programme Coordinator of IFAD/VCDP, Dr Stella Adejoh, said the VCDP was a commercially-oriented, market-led, demand-driven project designed to respond to market needs of end-users of rice and cassava commodities.
Adejoh explained that the goal of the programme was to reduce rural poverty, increase food security and accelerate economic growth on a sustainable basis.
She commended the benefiting farmers’ organisations in the five local government areas for their willingness to conform to the procedures of the programme.
She added that the VCDP was also training farmers on saving culture to be able to stand on their own and to take ownership of the programme for sustainability at the exit of VCDP in the state.
“So far, across the five benefiting local government areas, we have profiled more than 3,000 beneficiaries, and we have supported more than 800 producers.
“We have also supported processors and marketers. We are hopeful IFAD will extend the programme to more local government areas.
“’We are blessed in Kogi because we have good working environment and the state government has been very supportive with prompt payment of counterpart fund in the first year’,’’ she said.
Some of the beneficiaries of the programme in their separate comments applauded VCDP for the gesture, saying it had improved the lives of rural dwellers in the state.
Alhaji Abdullahi Yusuf, Head, Gaskiya Rice Mill Processing Cluster; and Mr Adoga Shata, Chairman Cassava Farmers’ Cluster, Akpamoba, thanked VCDP for the gesture, and assured that the projects would be well secured and utilised.
Shata and Yusuf, however, appealed to government for intervention in the areas of access roads, access to finance and viable market for maximum benefits.
Secretaries of Gaskiya Rice Parboilers, Lokoja, and the New Age Rice Producers, ASCO Camp; Mrs Halimat Jimba and Mrs Hannah Abieba, respectively, thanked VCDP and Kogi government for improving their lives through the provision of rice processing facilities.
NAN reports that four persons in the benefiting local government areas also received tricycles provided by Kogi VCDP to aid their business and movement of farm produce.
A beneficiary of a tricycle, Armstrong Shuaibu, from Olamaboro Local Government Area, thanked VDCP for the gesture and for aiding his life as a physically challenged person.
“As a physically challenged persons, the VCDP has given us maximum attention, and today, by the grace of God, I am a proud owner of a tricycle to aid my movement and business through VCDP’,’’ Shuaibu said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the tricycles beneficiaries paid 30 per cent, while VCDP paid the balance of 70 per cent of the cost.
The projects visited by the team included Gaskiya Rice Mill Processing Centre with Parboiled Shed and Drying Slab, Solar Borehole and Market Stalls at Kungbani, Cassava Demonstration Plot and Youth Entrepreneurs Cassava Seed Production farm in Akpamoba, Lokoja. (NAN).
