GIZ spends Seventeen million Euros building farmers’ capacity in eight states

 

Images speak @ the training on Agricultural production and processing economics held in Abuja by the Green Innovation Centre for the Agriculture and Food Sector- Nigeria (GIZ)

The Green Innovation Centre for the Agriculture and Food Sector (GIZ), Nigeria is building capacities of farmers on four major value chains which include maize, rice cassava and Irish potatoes between 2015 and 2021 in eight states in Nigeria-Ogun, Oyo- cassava, Rice-Benue, maize- Kano and Kaduna, Irish potato- Plateau state. This was disclosed by Caroline Trimbom the Project Coordinator GIZ during capacity building training for journalists in Abuja.

She said that the whole event was targeted at building the capacity of the small holder farmers in best agronomics of crops productivity in collaboration with government agencies in the sector. “We build capacity in training the farmers in collaboration with Federal Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development  (Agric Development Programmes), on good agricultural practices, processors business school (PBS) on small scale rice parboiling and garri processing, packaging technology for small and medium processors (Cooperation with Bosch and FIIRO) and ICT- based solutions for optimal supply management”, explained Trimbom.

She disclosed that the body was expending seventeen million euros in the capacity building for 200,000 farmers across the country over six years and emphasized on the need for creating linkages along the values chains to boost upstream, after post production, to link the farmers with the processors so as to ensure inclusive cottage industry like cassava and rice milling centres for more gains using some basic economics to enhance efficiency.

She added that GIZ also work on advocacy issues, with private and public partners on quality seeds supply stressing that the green innovation centre as a project would continue to gain momentum until the close of the project in 2021 and that the media capacity building was inevitable to lengthen its shelve life with the rural people.

Meanwhile, the body has given capacity training to 35 journalists on proper media agricultural reporting with linkages to economic business of crops and food value chains from production, processing and marketing with strong information synergy.