GEF-UNDP Project promises rewarding activities for 2021 farming season

The United Nations Development Programme, UNDP-Global Environment Facility GEF, Project on Climate-Smart Agriculture has promised farmers in beneficiary communities of an exciting outing in 2021.

The Project Desk Officer of the project in Gombe State, Mr. Maina Jonathan, said during a Review Meeting ahead of 2021 rainy season farming that while last years activities would be maintained and enhanced, new programmes would be introduced.

Mr. Jonathan listed the new programmes to include Bee-Keeping, a continuation of livelihood support, distribution of water pumps and sprayers for youths as well as special training on nutrition and energy-saving stoves.

For the nutrition programme, Mr. Jonathan said farmers would be particularly taught to use the available foods in the area to produce nutritious foods.

“Seeing that the climate is fast catching up with us, we have introduced some crop varieties which are short duration which can be planted and harvested within two to three months,” Mr. Jonathan said.

While reviewing last year’s performance, the Desk Officer scored the outing in 2020 as very good, because despite the Coronavirus Lockdown, the beneficiary communities cooperated operated demonstration farms in Soya Beans, Rice and G/nuts.

Other areas that did well include tree planting and erosion control and the livelihood support that gave out five goats each to groups for reproduction and shared amongst the members.

Of a particular note, Mr. Jonathan said the rest of the communities should learn from those members in Gelengu, who use the proceeds to give out loans and collect them back with interest.

For the Extension Agents in the beneficiary communities, they hoped to redouble their efforts in the year 2021, but require the early provision of seeds and early acquisition of the lands for demonstration.

Mr. Haziel Kelvin is the Extension Agent for Jessu Community in Balanga Local Government Area, he said the challenges faced last year was the inability to acquire the right portion of the land required for the demonstration, flood and lack of cooperation from two of the groups, but they were all sorted out.

He also said this year, he hoped to stepdown the training on Group Dynamics which he received from the project, so that the members of the groups would know the benefits of cooperating to achieve the objective of the project.

For Mr. Nuhu Sale, the Extension Agent in Gelengu Community, the year 2020 was a successful year, with adequate cooperation from the members of the various groups in the area.

He however, said the inputs were given to him late and early ceasing of rains this had almost affected the outcome of the products, but he intended to start the process quite early.

The Desk Officer of the UNDP-GEF Project said preparations would have begun and that the farming season would kick-off early, so as to avoid the few challenges encountered last year.

The UNDP-GEF project is a Climate Smart Agriculture programme for selected farmers in ten communities in two local government areas of Gombe State and also executed in six other states in Nigeria.

The objective is the adoption of integrated approach on fostering Sustainability and Resilience for Food Security in the Savannah Zones of Northern Nigeria, so as to enhance food security in the country.