The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has stated the reason state governments should commit towards a six-year assisted Value Chain Development Programme (FGN/IFAD VCDP) which they are the main beneficiaries.
The FGN/IFAD VCDP seeks to improve the livelihood outcomes of 135,000 smallholder farmers along the rice and cassava value chains in Anambra, Benue, Ebonyi, Niger, Ogun and Taraba, Enugu, Kogi and Nasarawa.
Interacting with journalists at the wrap-up of the 10th supervision mission of the FGN/IFAD VCDP in Abuja, IFAD Country Director, Mrs Dede Ekoue, commended Ebonyi, Enugu, Kogi and Taraba states for paying their counterpart fund contribution, urged the remaining participating states to comply with theirs own contributions.
The IFAD Country Director further stated that the VCDP has had immense impacts on youth and women, especially in the areas of income generation and gender equality.
”We’ve seen that the youth are very happy to have the support of the VCDP and it is leading them to increase their income along the value chain. We have for example, seed entrepreneurs, these are the young people that have been trained, we also have the youth providing some services to farmers, mechanisation services, that’s really important.
”Women have also shown that they’re really happy about the program because it not only allows women to have access to inputs, but it also works within the community to improve gender equality using the household approach that we call the gender Learning Action system.
”We need all the states that are members covered by VCDP to come forth with the counterpart funds because, without funding, it’s difficult to achieve the results to the scale that was planned. We acknowledge that the Federal Minister of Agriculture has disbursed its counterpart funds.
”I want to thank all the states that have been paying the counterpart funds this year. We know we had this counterpart fund paid in Ebonyi, Enugu, Kogi and Taraba states”, she said.
In her remarks, the National Programme, Coordinator, FGN/IFAD VCDP, Dr Fatima Aliyu, maintained that the programme has improved the lives of women and youth in value addition and employment opportunities.
She stated that the mission team has discovered among other things that VCDP has done well in terms of outreach as real smallholder farmers have been targeted and reached, thereby linking them with off-takers
She said: ”We are supposed to reach 135 smallholder farmers and processors across nine participating states by the year 2024 And presently we are at 94 per cent.
”So we are on track to achieving that target to do well in targeting as well because we’ve targeted the real smallholder farmers those that are in need.
”We have women groups that we gave processes centres to they started with 10,000 Naira, and today they have mobilised enough to be buying equipment worth over 20 million, and the rest was just from 10,000 4 years ago, and the fridge over 20 million and they are all women, just small pools are women farmers, equipments, they’ve made that investment on their own.
”They are gainfully employed and they are also employed people. Also done well in terms of youth employment. we have trained so many youths, both male and female, in different agricultural enterprises, and especially seed production, and this was doing so well”.
The Director, the Programme Coordination Unit of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, Mr Bukar Musa, said one of the most inspiring aspects of the VCDP is the positive impact it has radon the lives of countless farmers and their communities.
. TheWitness
