IFAD targets 1.5m farmers under Climate adaptation programme

Journalists Interviewing the Director Department of Agriculture Resources and Climate Change, and Supervising Director CASP. Dr. Sunday Modibo

  * Seven  states to benefit

 

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.