At least 115 women and youth groups across Kaduna’s 23 local government areas are undergoing training on improved rice parboiling techniques, aimed at increasing the income of small farming houses and elevating their standard of living.
Arewa Trust Weekly reports that five groups were selected from each of the LGA’s in a training that commenced on December 9th and is expected to end on December 18th.
At the launching of the training and empowerment, which was organised by the Kaduna State Ministry of Local Government Affairs in collaboration with Sasakawa Africa Association and Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) Kaduna consortium Project, the state Deputy Governor, Dr. Hadiza Balarabe, said agriculture is still prevalent as a traditional method because farming implements are still simple and crude while land use is inhibiting large-scale farming as land is tied down to families.
“The result is that peasant farmers who constitute over 70 per cent of our population, with youths and women being the most active segment of that population, produce mostly for local consumption. The import of this is that we cannot afford to ignore our women and youths who are majorly in this group,” she said.
She said the state government is doing its best to ensure that farmers get value for their labour adding, “Often, our farmers do not process their farm produce but rather sell to companies which then process and make more money at their expense. As a responsible government, we cannot allow this to continue that is why we are involved in this programme.”
Speaking earlier, the Country Director of Sasakawa Africa Association, Prof. Sani Miko, said the dividends of AGRA’s investment in Sasakawa in Kaduna has been realized.
“This I assure everybody is going to be like setting the grassroots on fire, fire of awareness and doing agriculture as a business to generate income so as to maintain our livelihood,” he said.
