UNDP encourages production of organic fertilizer for healthier nation

The UNDP-Global Environment Facility, GEF, Project on Fostering Food Security in the Nigerian Savannah has encouraged Nigerian crop farmers to begin producing and using organic fertilizer.

A consultant with the UNDP-Global Environment Facility, GEF, Project, Dr. Chris Eche, who is an Expert on Food Security and Climate-Smart Agriculture, told Voice of Nigeria after training some farmers in project beneficiary communities in Balanga and Kaltungo Local Government Areas of Gombe State on how to make organic fertilizer in their fields, because it is safe, effective, efficient and productive.

He said the training became necessary, because the availability and use of organic fertilizer would subsequently produce a healthy nation.

Dr. Eche said an experiment conducted over a three-year period produced a highly fortified organic manure, which was applied on farms and subsequently produced a 65 percent increase in production, against farm produce from chemical fertilizer.

The food expert said all that farmers required in order to make an organic fertilizer were materials found right in the backyard, such as sticks, dry grass, fresh leaves, animal dung and water, making it cheap and affordable.

It will be recalled that getting beneficiary farmers in communities of the 7 UNDP-GEF Project states to buy into the use of Organic Fertilizer has been one of the cardinal objectives of the project, because it has in its demonstration farms exhibited the use of organic manure since the inception of the project.

According to the project brief, it wants every farmer in such communities to watch and learn first-hand, how such technology is productive, safe, and cost-effective.

However, because organic fertilizers tend to be expensive, the project then ventured into teaching farmers to produce the fertilizer by themselves, so that the outcome will encourage other non-beneficiary farmers to emulate and do the same.

According to the Consultant of the project, Dr. Chris Oche, the use of organic fertilizer can make a whole country healthy.

“We can start from where we are, because it is not about feeding the world, it is about feeding the world in a very healthy way. When you are healing the farmer, you are healing the soil environment itself, you are healing the ecosystem. So, I will call for the public to begin to consider these options of environmental safety engagement,” Dr. Eche said.  

Some of the beneficiary farmers who attended the training told Voice of Nigeria that they had found a way out of some of the challenges of getting fertilizers, which are expensive and recently learned had some health implications on the body.

Mr. Yahuza Harua, Mrs. Rakiya Adulkadir and Mr. Gideon Ali are some of the beneficiary farmers, who thanked the UNDP/GEF project for the opportunity to learn how to make compose manure for their use.

“I learnt how to make the compose manure. Which is very easy, very cheap and we have all the raw materials around. So, I will practice it, because it is very, very cheap. And very effective,”

 Mr. Haruna said

“I am going home today with what I learnt about making compose manure, which is very cheap, easy and I hope I will practice it and teach my colleague farmers to practice it,” said Mrs. Abdulkadir.

“I am going to practice it because I see the importance because it is more than the chemical fertilizer in every way. We have the animals, we have the raw materials because they are available in our village,” Mr. Ali said.

The Project Consultant is also calling on members of the public to try their hands on compose making, which was at no cost at all.

“Everything the farmer needs is on his farm. It’s a low-cost technology, ut a high principle technology. In a way, the farmer needs basically his sticks, his plant materials, that he can get from his farm, his animal dug, that he can get from his livestock farm, he has water obviously from his well or wherever. He will source everything locally from his livelihood,” Dr. Eche said.

Dr. Eche said the UNDP-GEF Project was doing its best to promote the use of organic manure, which could easily be produced at home, because it’s at no cost, sufficient, efficient and safe for the farmer and the environment.