The ‘Smallholder Farmers’ Empowerment for Food Security Project’ is aimed at helping farmers have easy access to input credits, increase access to output markets and increase sustainability to agricultural production and productivity.
The project and its implementation was launched in June 2015 and over 2,000 smallholder farmers were sensitized on the project in the three selected districts and was now only a half way through its implementation period.
The project will also identify and strengthen 100 Farmer Based Organizations (FBOs) within the three years and link them to structured output markets.
As part of the project, an input credit scheme being managed by another partner “Gumaya Enterprise” is to support a total of 60,000 smallholder farmers yearly with input credit, which consists of ploughing, certified seeds, weedicides and fertilizers.
Mr Amin Alhassan, the project manager of ABS, speaking at demonstration programme at Gburumani, said 10,000 smallholder farmers are to be trained on integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) as well as good agricultural practices and to link farmers to structure output markets within the three years of the project.
He urged farmers to adapt to drought resistant and high yield varieties of seeds to avert the impact of climate change, which alters the rainfall intensity and frequency.
Mr Dauda Abdul Salam, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Gumaya Enterprise, an agro input dealer advised farmers to consider the best methods from the demonstration and apply similar methods to their farms to improve upon their yields.
