Journalists Interviewing the Director Department of Agriculture Resources and Climate Change, and Supervising Director CASP. Dr. Sunday Modibo |
The Climate Adaptation and Agribusiness Support
Programme (CASP), a programme under International Food and Agriculture
Development (IFAD), was targeting farmers with the aim of reviving their
livelihoods.
This was disclosed by director, Agricultural Land
Resources and Climate Change, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development,
Engineer Sunday Modibo at the 10th Agricultural show held at Keffi, Nasarawa.
Engr. Modibo explained that IFAD-CASP targeted
1,547,000 direct farmers and 4,362,000 indirect farmers to implement adaption
strategies by giving equipment to young men and women in the seven northern states
that are participating in the programme.
He continued “The CASP is tackling the climate
change in Nigeria, if you see flood, desertification and herdsmen conflicts,
herdsmen in search of pastures, there is no pastures in the North, they are
coming to South east and west; in the process they are clashing with farmers.
We want to teach them how to do business of farming and provide support to them
in terms of high yield crops and implements to go into farming as early as
possible for human and animal feeds”
“Provide them infrastructure that will allow them
to go into double or triple farming, pest control, processing and marketing,
and adding value to their produce so that they can be in the business. We also
provide 9,159 employment for the youth in those areas in financial service
associations (5,000 manager, cashiers and security), 3,535 enterprises and 624
pilot enterprises,’’ he said.
The director added that the programme is operating
in 104 local government areas and 727 villages in Borno, Jigawa, Katsina,
Kebbi, Sokoto, Yobe and Zamfara states, to facilitate market and economic development.
“We assist them to produce high quality crops and link them with off-takers.
There are lots of off -takers and we sell ourselves at everywhere we go. We are
partnering with Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet) and some other organizations
to help our beneficiaries’ challenges so as to increase their income. NiMet is
helping us to provide weather information to our farmers”
The National
Programme Coordinator of CASP, Mr. Mohammed Idah who was represented by Modu Shugaba, Agricultural Development
Coordinator of the project said that the programme provided farmers with advice
on how to mitigate climate change challenges saying “We are bringing to the
notice of farmers the effects of climate change. Climate change is real; people
need to take cognizance of climate change in whatever they are doing
particularly in agricultural activities. We are partnering with many organizations
and research institutes especially NIMET to predict rainfall. Our farmers now
know when the rain will start and when it is going to end, so they plan toward
this and achieve their crop calendar”
Idah stated that most things CASP did for farmers
are climate change mitigation programmes and desertification control measures
which include encouraging woodlots, shelterbelts, agro-forestry, community
nursery, participatory land use planning (PLUP), reducing land degradation,
promoting tree crops for increased income.
Others are collaboration with NiMET to downscale
seasonal rainfall prediction (SRP) to all the participating councils and
villages, in collaboration with International Centre for Agricultural Research
in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) to enhance agricultural production.
CASP also develop rangelands to reduce
farmers/pastoralists conflict, linkages to existing market information
platform, farmers profiling, using ICT and GPS to capture biodata, farm size,
location, value chain crop and BVN registration.
He added that the youths and women were encouraged
to participate in the agricultural productivity and agricultural enterprises to
enable them go into value chain that would generate more income and employment.
“We are promoting seven value chains of cowpea, groundnut, millet, maize,
sorghum, wheat and rice, each of the state has three value chains to support. We
are working seriously to reduce poverty, increased food security and
accelerated economic growth on a sustainable basis,’’ he said.
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