5000 farmers to benefit from OCP Africa, ABU Agribooster partnership

About 5000 maize farmers in Kaduna state are set to reap the benefit of OCP Africa agricultural intervention programme “Agribooster Campus Offer” in partnership with the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.

OCP Africa is the world largest exporter and producer of phosphate and phosphate-based fertiliser. The company drives the bilateral partnership between Nigeria and Morocco on supply of phosphate to blending plants in the country.

Through this programme, the fertiliser company will train and equip 15 Postgraduate students of the Department of Agriculture the university on extension delivery system in order to help the 5000 farmers with the best agronomy practices in maize production.

The Country Manager of OCP Africa, Mr Caleb Usoh while signing the MoU that seal the partnership at the office of the Vice Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, said the company decided to use the university for the project because of its robust department of Agriculture and access to land which the university enjoys.

“We reckon that many of the universities have very robust agriculture faculty and they also have access to land, so instead of keeping those land there, probably we can engage with the school to use those lands to farm, and tap knowledge from the faculty of agriculture to train and offer extension services. by that, the students are a bit away from only academics and books to the practicals.

“I think that if we do that it will also spur their interest in agriculture as a business so that beyond graduation, they could also see opportunities to take career in agriculture, so that’s why we are doing what we are doing in Agribooster Campus Offer, and we chose your institution as a pilot to start this”, he noted.

Mr Usoh said the company was providing inputs, seeds, fertilizers and agro-chemicals and the training putting by the schools into the project, adding that the knowledge and successes gain from the project will be replicated in other universities.

While receiving the OCP Africa delegation, the Vice Chancellor of the University, Professor Ibrahim Garba said the school would assist OCP Africa to achieve the goal of the programme.

He urged the company to always approach the school whenever they are in need of partnership that would drive development in the agricultural sector.

“The university and the immediate region is a very well known agrarian environment, much of what we do in our small ways under our Micro Finance Bank and our Institute for Agriculture Research, we are doing it in our small ways, so what you brought in is to help us boost it and have mutual benefit”, Professor Garba said.