Flood Impact: IFAD to commence Dry Season Farming in Nigeria 

The International Fund for Agricultural Development-Value Chain Development Programme (IFAD-VCDP) has said that it will commence dry season farming in the country’s worst affected nine states in Nigeria – Anambra, Benue, Ebonyi, Niger, Ogun, and Taraba, Kogi, Enugu, and Nasarawa to mitigate the impact of flooding.

The VCDP’s acting National Programme Coordinator, Dr. Fatima Aliyu, disclosed this during the fifth implementation support mission of the Federal Government/IFAD-VCDP.

“Immediate commencement of dry season farming across the states is our priority to ensure food security for the rural farmers whose farm produce got affected by the flood,” she said.

Aliyu stated that floods had inundated six of the eight Anambra local government areas where the programme was being implemented.

As a result, there had been massive losses, not just for farmers but also for the programme and the states involved.

“The major activity for us now is to see how we will rehabilitate our farmers.

“The flood occurred towards the harvest season, especially for rice, and washed away our crops.

“So, IFAD’s priority is achieving food security.

“We are going to increase the number of our dry season activities this year so that it will mitigate the effect of flooding.

“This is to enable them to have some food, especially rice in their homes for consumption this year,” she said.

Furthermore, the coordinator added that they will introduce varieties of rice and cassava that are flood-tolerant, have better yields, and are early maturing.

Before now, Ms. Dede Ekoue, the IFAD Country Director for Nigeria, stated that the mission’s objectives and targets were to be evaluated along with the challenges encountered “so that we can draw a path, a trajectory for accelerated implementation, and also appraise whether the mission was very successful in implementing the full program.”

“Farmers are still having a lot of challenges in accessing credit.

“There’s more to be done by all the partners, to access finance in boosting production capacity.”

The country director said in terms of progress, the VCDP programme had made significant headway in helping farmers improve their income.

“Farmers are having improved income using innovative approaches to agronomy practices which is very important because they are helping farmers learn how to produce better, among others,” she said.

Remarking, the Director, Project Coordinating Unit of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Peter Kush, said the IFAD has contributed a lot to helping many rural farmers across the country.

He called for more collaborations to help farmers in the country.

Source: Agro Nigeria