Anambra rice, cassava farmers shower praises on IFAD for improved yield

 

 

Awka- RICE and cassava farmers in Anambra River Basin of Anambra State have showered praises on the International Fund for Agricultural Development, IFAD, for its assistance, which they said, had helped to increase their yield by over 70 percent since the intervention of the world body two year ago.

 

The farmers spoke when officials of IFAD Value Chain led by its senior technical adviser, Dr. Patrick Nugawela visited clusters of the farmers as part of its monitoring exercise in Anambra State, which is part of the selected states in the country for rice and cassava production.

 

Anambra is targeted to cultivate 3500 hectares of land for rice and cassava in the next few years under the IFAD value chain programme which would terminate in 2019 and is expected to cultivate 1000 hectares this year.

 

As part of efforts to meet the target, 300 youths from the state had been trained at the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture, IITA, Ibadan on pest control and they too have been training other farmers in the selected local government areas of the state.

 

Mr. Peter Emeka, a rice farmer at Omor in Ayamelum local government area of the state said during an interaction with members of the IFAD value chain team that before the new programme, farmers were adopting transplanting, which yielded very little, adding that the introduction of value chain tripled their yield.

 

He also said that IFAD introduced the use of up-taker buyers who ensured that all their produce were bought at competitive prizes, just as the system had ensured an all-year round production.

 

Emeka said: “Before IFAD came, we were planting grains, but IFAD introduced us to the use of seeds which helped to increase our yield. They also taught us on the proper spacing and the ideal time to apply fertilizer.

 

“We are aware that IFAD would only operate for five years and that is why we are preparing ourselves to sustain all the things they taught us when they eventually leave”

 

At the Igbariam cassava cluster, one of the farmers, Mr. Anthony Ogbuyi said they were spending so much without making much profit until IFAD introduced them to mechanized farming and subsidized the farming inputs for them.

 

Though the IFAD officials expressed delight at the testimony of the farmers, their leader, Dr. Nugawela said there was still room for improvement, adding that the 4.5 metric tonnes of rice, which the farmers werecurrently producing, was far below the yield in many Afarican and Asian countries.

 

He also promised that the organization would consider some of their requests, including the facilitation of functioning of dam in the region and exposing them to financial institutions for soft loans.