‘Sustainable irrigation key to eradicating poverty in Nigeria’

The President and Chief Operating Officer of Kickstart International, Peter Juma, said achieving an all-year-round irrigation system in Nigeria would be a panacea towards eradicating poverty in Nigeria and Africa as a whole.

Speaking at the launch of the MoneyMaker Starter Pump for Small Holder farmers in Abuja, Juma said if irrigation can be put to proper use, Africa can feed itself, adding that the continent has the capacity to even export its farm produce to other parts of the world.

He said farming is a lucrative business if done the right way and called on small holder farmers across the country to embrace the business as the easier way to escape poverty.

In his remarks, Engineer Abdullahi Abubakar, the Director federal Department of agriculture in the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, said irrigation was a productive venture, adding that “We try as much as possible to encourage irrigation in our farming activities, because it is only through irrigation that you will be sure of your water, when to give water and when not to give water to your plants.

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“As we all know, each plant has a consumptive use which you will need to apply, it is only through irrigation that you will know when to apply water and when not to apply water. The federal government in its own wisdom has a large scale irrigation dam and small holder’s irrigation facilities.

“The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development under the federal department of Agriculture is trying to encourage smallholder irrigation, whereby we try to procure pumps of three horse power, with which you don’t need to use any fuel. You just exert pressure and it will pump your water.”

He said the government is trying to procure these kinds of pumps and support small holder farmers and encourage them to understand how to use it as a way forward.

On his part, Tom Opapa, Director of partnerships in African of KickStarts International, disclosed that though there are many irrigation equipment in the market in Nigeria and the whole of Africa, these irrigation equipment are not appropriate for small holder farmers, in terms of cost, technical knowhow and the knowledge required to use those technology, especially the capital to repair when they break down. Some do not even have what it takes to buy the equipment.”

Opapa therefore said what Kickstarter is trying to do is to address that gap, making available a technology that is cost effective, durable and reliable, “the one that can enable a smallholder farmer on its own to do all year farming, make more money and move away from poverty.”