The Country Director of Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA), Godwin Atser, has disclosed that the SAA has invested over $1 million as agricultural interventions in Nasarawa State over a period of two years and farmers are already reaping the benefits.
Atser said SAA is a Japan government-funded and support program which came into Nigeria in 1992 with major focus on increasing the productivity of maize, cassava, millet, sorghum and rice.
Speaking during a visit to the Commissioner of Agriculture and Water Resources of Nasarawa State before embarking on a media field tour of the program’s benefiting communities, Atser while stating that SAA is building two aggregation centres in two local government of the state, noted that the total investment in the state by SAA is over $1 million since 2022 the program began implementation in the state.
“Our role is to see how we can contribute to poverty reduction to increase the productivity of food crops and to create wealth for resource constraint farmers.
“We work in for key countries, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Uganda and Mali. In Nigeria we are about 31 years now, we were established here in 1992. Since then we have been working in the agricultural space.
“Our contribution has shown that we have increased our productivity of the key crops that we work on, basically maize, cassava, Millet and sorghum, rice and some other value chains that will come in especially vegetables and the biofortified crops that we work on.
“We work across the value chain, so it is not all about production but we also ensure that processing is a key component of what we do and we ensure that farmers get access to market through our market orientated agriculture.
“In the last few years we have worked in Nasarawa state and this year we want to take the media to field across all the value chains that we worked in so that they can have a feel of the contributions that we are making in Nasarawa.
“Total investment in Nasarawa is more than a million dollars, currently, we are building two aggregation centres and these centres are in Obi local government and also in Lafia local government”, the SAA Country Director said.
He said at the completion of these facilities, it is hoped that farmers will have access to processing facilities for their rice. Atser further noted that the farmers will be able to increase their productivity because one aspect is demonstrating regenerative approaches in those communities so that farmers can actually have access to better ways of growing rice and increase productivity.
In his response, the Commissioner of Agriculture and Water Resources in Nasarawa State, Umar Abubakar Dan-Akano who was represented by the Permanent Secretary, said these interventions that SAA are providing are what is scaling up food production in the state.
He said the state is aware of the interventions and are willing to continue their partnership and support for SAA for increased crop productivity.
“We are aware of the areas that you have been providing interventions and we have been taking comprehensive briefing from the program manager and we want to commend these efforts, we are proud of SAA”, he added.
Also, the Program Manager, Nasarawa Agricultural Development Program (NADP), Emmanuel Alanana, said despite the fact that SAA has been in the state for just two years, there impact has been felt by the farmers in the state.
He commended the governor of the state for providing enabling environment for SAA to implement its agricultural intervention in the state.
“SAA has been in this state for the past two years and despite the fact that they are new, their impact has been felt already by our farmers because of the interventions that they have done in agriculture in the state”, Alanana noted.
. TheWitness
