Nigerian Government To Ensure Market Access for Farmers
By Ene Okwanihe
The Nigerian Government says the Rural Access and Agricultural Market Project (RAAMP) would ensure farmers in rural Nigeria get access to market for their produce, thereby improving farmers’ livelihoods and reducing post harvest losses.
RAAMP is an initiative of the Federal Government of Nigeria aimed at improving rural road network for Nigerians and linking farmers to markets.
So far, in the previous phases, 2928 km of rural roads have been constructed, 2445 jobs have been created through labour based maintenance system and 2217 people have benefited from the initial phases of the project.
The project has a total outlay of 575million US Dollars; it’s jointly financed by the International Development Association (IDA), the French Development Agency (AFD) and the participating states.
IDA Contributes 280 million US Dollars, the AFD contributes 230 million while the Nigerian government’s contribution stands at 65 million US Dollars.
Delivering the keynote address at the Presidential launch of the Rural Access and Agricultural Marketing Project in Abuja Nigeria’s Capital city President Muhammadu Buhari who was represented by the Governor of Borno state, Professor Babagana Zulum said his administration would ensure all states in the country benefit from the Rural Access and Agricultural Market Project in Nigeria (RAAMP).
He said the project would open up the rural areas and further boost the economic growth of the local populace.
“The inclusion of the road infrastructure components is an emphatic recognition of access as the cutting edge of all developmental efforts, especially rural development, hence providing access and connectivity between agricultural marketing and production centers is certain to tilt the micro economic indices in the rural areas in favour of the local populace in general. However, it is my administration’s plan to ensure that every state benefit from this laudable project, it is also pertinent to state here that this administration remains committed to changing the narrative of the economy through diversification initiatives like this one, I beseech all state governors here present to take up this challenge and live up to their responsibilities of providing all the support required to make this laudable undertaking the kind of success that posterity will judge favourable”
Speaking at the Presidential launch of the Rural Access and Agricultural Marketing Project in Nigeria, Abuja Nigeria’s Capital city, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development in Nigeria, Dr. Mohammed Abubakar said RAAMP would strengthen food security, maintenance of infrastructure amongst others.
According Dr. Abubakar, RAAMP has aided the development of the Nigerian Road Transport Infrastructure Management System
“The project would strengthen food security through the sustainable development and maintenance of transport infrastructure as well as upgrade of secondary market in the country, consequently, the resultant effect will be quick delivery of agricultural input services and technology to the rural populace to boost agricultural production”
He further spoke on the achievements of the RAAMP project So far “it may interest you to know that under the pilot project of phase1 and phase2 of the rural access and mobility project that’s the original ram which the participating States include Kaduna, Cross River, Adamawa, Enugu, Niger, and Imo State have achieved a total of two thousand, nine hundred and Twenty Eight kilometers of rural roads constructed with about Two thousand Four hundred and Forty-Five jobs created through lay back based maintenance system, a total of about Two Thousand Two Hundred and Seventeen inhabitants are direct beneficiaries of this project”
While restating the Ministry’s commitment to ensuring food sufficiency, creating employment opportunities and poverty reduction in Rural Nigeria, the Minister commended and appreciated the support of the various partners.
The Gombe state Governor who spoke on behalf of the state governors present and the participating states said the governors are committed to any project that would give access to the rural areas.
“Whatever will give support to agriculture and marketing and accessibility in the rural areas is always welcome by the governors and we have given this commitment and we shall continue to do so in order to achieve and we happy that eventually all the remaining state would be scaled up so that it would cover the entire country”
The benefits are very enormous especially in areas involved in agriculture production”
The RAAMP project is currently running in 19 states across the country namely, Abia, akwa-Ibom, Bauchi, Ebonyi, Ekiti, Gombe, Kogi, Katsina, Kaduna, Kano, Kebbi, Kwara, Ogun, Ondo, Oyo, Osun, Niger, Plateau and Sokoto.
