An outlook performance of SAA2000 for 25 years in Nigeria

Sasakawa African Association in Africa (SAA2000)

A cake was cut to celebrate the 30 years of existence of Sasakawa African Association in Africa (SAA2000) and 25^th in Nigeria, and this brought to the fore the impact it has made in Nigeria agricultural technologies transfer from the Research Institutes to farmers and processors in the last 25 years especially when the country’s ADPs extension services is almost gone extinct, at the departure of the world bank assisted programme.

One of the witnesses at the beginning of SAA2000 about 25years ago, a former permanent secretary in the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr. A.O Edache in the gathering gave a picture of  how the programme began through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) as he said his initial reluctance to SAA2000 proposal wearied away when he saw the people behind the idea and the purpose the programme would serve to fight hunger in Africa and Nigeria saying  “ it is a great thing for me when 25 years ago, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo came to the then agriculture Minister with a proposal on behalf of this organization which was handed over to me for appraisal, but then I was not initially convinced based on the support extension was getting from the world bank which was short lived. But when I studied the proposal with the caliber of people involved (Dr.  Norman Borlaug, father of Green Revolution, former US President, Jimmy Carter and Chief Olusegun Obasanjo) and the purpose the MOU will serve the country in terms of food security made me to support it and a MOU was signed that brought SAA2000 to Nigeria. I can see the emotional attachment of this organization to the small scale farmers as they have been able to transfer best practical training to farmers with research based instruction that is giving high yield of maize as high as five ton per hectare and seven ton of wheat per hectare. Over 3 million farmers have worked with SAA2000 with over 2,000 extension programme officers” 

 

However in the last 30 and 25 years of existence in Africa and Nigeria respectively, Sasakawa2000 at a glance has the following to say- terms of operation in Nigeria.“For SAA, a milestone has been reached in this anniversary year with the completion of strategic plan from 2012 to 2016 of which the architect was the late Christ Dowswell, working with SAA’s managerial team. In Nigeria, working mainly with and through the extension services departments (ADPs) of state ministries of agriculture, SG2000 has proved that given access to technology already available, small-scale farmers can drastically increase (Triple or quadruple) their yield of food and cash crops. 

Thus a farmer obtaining 1.5t/ha of maize using traditional practice is able to improve his yield to 4.5-6.0t/ha using the SG2000 productivity enhancing technology. Sasakawa trained over 4,300 extension agents on different aspects of crop value chains, trained cumulatively over 5 million farmers including women agro processors, youths and even persons with special needs, promoted 21 different post-harvest technologies, established 21 agro processing centers to add value to crops and linked many crop producers to the market and credit” Through SG2000 superb education programme, many extension officers who have never thought of becoming a doctorate holder are now one through its programme affiliation with many of our universities as over 50 million people in Africa and Nigeria have been positively affected. 

 The Managing Director (MD) SAA2000 Dr. Juliana Rwelamira appreciated the support given for the organization by all the partnering agencies, the states and federal government saying more still needed to be done in the face of transferring improved technologies to farmers for more productivity with high yield to meet food security and halve bill on importation gulping billions annually in Africa and Nigeria.

Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and many others farmers, foot soldiers from the states’ ADPs and Institutions like IAR, NAERLs are  given award of excellent performance towards the success recorded by SG2000 in the last 25 years of operation in Nigeria that have affected over three million people in the country.