Media Conference On Food Security Ends In Adamawa State

Abubakar Mohammed, Yola

Feed the Future, Nigeria Rural Resilience Activity (RRA) had organized a 3-days workshop for media practitioners in Yola, Adamawa State on agribusiness and food security.

The 3 days conference which was held in Yola, aim at exposing the critical role of the media in advocacy of food security in North East Nigeria.

Financial inclusion for small-holder farmers and micro-enterprise owners in Nigeria lack access to finance which is major constraint militating against the growth of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises and smallholder farmers in Northeast Nigeria .

A statistical data have revealed that, rural dwellers , farmers and MSMEs were faced with the challenge of lack of access to finance owing to their inability to meet the requirements for accessing credit facilities.

The USAID funded Feed the Future Nigeria Rural Resilience Activity ‘ in the North East states of Borno , Adamawa , Yobe and Borno in October 2019 gave financial literacy and inclusion for smallholder farmers and business owners , whose means of livelihood were moving in a downward trend due to the ongoing insecurity challenge and the news of a ( COVID – 19 ) , which eventually became a pandemic and led to total and partial lockdown of movement and businesses.

The 3 days conference organized by Mercy Corp aimed at partnering with Journalist and other relevant stakeholders in the Agribusiness across the north east, journalist were engaged to bridge the gap, amongst other market challenges.

During the conference the chief party RRA Margarita Aswani told journalists that, ” like many more programmes the activities was interrupted by COVID-19, our farmers couldn’t go to their farms and if our farmers can’t go to the farm we also can’t go to the farmers. Jimwhen the restrictions were lifted we were able to make specific progress we reached 338,000 participants in the North East, we included $40m in sells of grains, fertilizer, feeds and other interest. We have created more than 9,000 jobs in the North East, we brought 80,000 private partners to work with us in the North East with funds, those we fund we gave more than half million dollars”.

Margarita further said, ” we are targeting 590,000 participants in the life of the activity ending by 2024 we are in 27 local government areas of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa. Flood was a big challenge we did so much more in Adamawa but 90% of the farms were wiped out by flood” .

Similarly Journalist were taking to As’mau farms in Adamawa state to see were associated seeds and grains are cultivated, the MD As’mau farms Tukur Ma’azu told journalists that Agric is a good venture, it provide employment and it provides food.

“when there’s food the issue of insecurity will ne minimize also Agric business is a very difficult thing in Nigeria if you are not harden u will runaway, Agriculture is a good thing but the process is a big challenge to farmers, seeds are difficult to access”.