A Swiss-based NGO, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), has begun training 200 farmers on financial cycles in Kaduna.
The farmers were 50 each from Giwa, Kubau, Lere, and Kauru LGAs of Kaduna State, where GAIN is carrying out some interventions.
The training is in collaboration with a development partner, Promotion of Agricultural Finance for Agri-Based Enterprises in Rural Areas (AgFin), under the Germany International Development Cooperation (GiZ) project.
The Project Manager, Biofortification of GAIN, Mr. Lachang Faden, said on Thursday that the alliance wanted farmers to see their farming activities as business.
He explained that for the farmers to achieve their aims, they were trained on savings and mobilisation, record-keeping, and how to access loans, risk, and insurance.
Faden added that with the training, GAIN envisaged the farmers expanding their production of vitamin-enriched crops.
Speaking further, he said GAIN was implementing the Strengthening Nutrition in Priority Staples (SNiPS) project, which had three components.
He said the training, which was under the biofortification component, was to enable farmers to transit a portion of their production to the nutrient-enriched staples.
He said the biofortified staples were vitamin A maize and cassava, and orange-fleshed sweet potatoes.
The project manager explained that the aim was to ensure the farmers cultivated and consumed the crops to mitigate the problem of malnutrition affecting people, especially children from the ages of zero to five and old people.
He said GAIN worked with farmers in Oyo, Kaduna, Benue, and Nasarawa states in Nigeria.
He, however, said in Kaduna, they worked with 6,000 farmers alongside the vitamin A maize value chain, so they could transit a portion of their production to the high-nutrition-density vitamin A maize variety.
The project manager equally said GAIN provided the farmers with vitamin-fortified maize seedlings and other productive inputs like herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers.
He added that they also trained the farmers on good agronomy practices and built the capacity of extension agents on how to plant, harvest, store, and transport.
He urged the farmers to make positive use of the training to improve their farming productivity for their own benefit and that of the nation at large.
Also, the resource person at the training, Emem Paul, said at the end of the exercise, the farmers were expected to be able to budget for their personal uses.
The trainees, being farmers, have one or two seasons of farming where the inflow of income is not regular like in other businesses.
As such, the farmers have to plan for their farming activities and keep records.
She added that the training taught the farmers how to access and leverage loans to expand their farming activities and pay promptly.
“Before they collect loans, we emphasize to them understanding its terms and conditions, like interest rates, and also knowing the criteria.
“They must know the amount they are seeking as a loan for their business, because it is not a grant; they must pay, and therefore should know their capacity and capabilities.
“We also taught them the importance of insuring their farms because they are supposed to see their farming activities as business,” Paul said.
Some of the participants, Ishaq Haruna and Kauna John, said that with the interventions of GAIN over the years, they recorded better yields in their farming activities.
The duo said that before GAINS interventions, over the years they only cultivated what they ate with their families, but with the assistance of the NGO, they cultivated more than their consumption and took the rest to markets for monetary gains.
They thanked the NGO for the opportunity while pledging to utilise the knowledge they gained in the training for the betterment of their farming activities and financial status.(NAN)
