Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), a consortium of agriculture support organisations, will train over 300,000 smallholder farmers on maize production in Kaduna State.
According to AGRA, the programme would increase farmers’ productivity and resilience in responding to issues of climate change.
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AGRA Programme Officer in the state, Dr Esther Ibrahim, who stated this at the inauguration of the training said the programme is to transform the food system in Africa, particularly Nigeria, which faced serious climate change challenges.
According to her, the project would support 300,000 farmers in the state on crop value chain, especially maize, soybeans and tomatoes by strengthening their enterprising skills and market participation.
“The project is a consortium with other critical stakeholders along the value chain to provide expertise, market, finance and extension support. The overall aim is to ensure that Africa and Nigeria are able to feed themselves with quality food,” she said.
She said that AGRA relied on the performance of Kaduna government partnership with other organisations such as ‘Tomato Jos’ to create enabling market for the produce.
In his remarks, Professor Emmanuel Ikani, Executive-Director, National Agricultural Extension and Research Liaison Services (NAERLS), Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, said the institute would continue to provide farmers with required knowledge on farming techniques to achieve higher yields.
Malam Ibrahim Husein, Kaduna State Commissioner for Agriculture, said the consortium for maize value chain would favour the state agricultural production.
The commissioner lauded AGRA for the initiative and hoped that the programme would impact positively on small-holder farmers.
