The Chief of Party, Feed the Future Nigeria Rural Resilience Activity (FNRRA), Margarite Aswani has said that Activity will partner Meadow Food Growth in youth and women employment. According to her, the Rural Resilience Activity (RRA) grant of $495,000 (N2.3 billion) will support 20,000 rice and maize farmers across the country Aswani in a statement Thursday in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital, disclosed that the project is being implemented under the Meadow Foods GrowIT project. She said that a smallholder farmer in Adamawa or Gombe states cultivates about an acre of land to earn $400 annually, noting that it barely meets a household’s basic needs of life.
She lamented that the farmers lack access to climate-smart farm inputs, including improved seeds, fertilizers and insecticides.“Crop protection and mechanized land preparation services are inadequate,” she said, adding that there was inadequate real time advisory to help improve farm yields on their investments. She warned that with limited access to finance, including credit and insurance, smallholder farmers are unable to scale up production. “They could not increase their productivity and yields at harvest,” she lamented. According to her, the digital platform could also provide real-time advice to farmers and help them to manage their investment portfolios. Other benefits, she added include market linkages for the purchase of inputs and sales of produce; market Intelligence and returns on Investments. She noted that this will help them rise from subsistence to commercial farmers.
Nigeria is strongly advocating for, and has in place policies that encourage local production of staple crops.
