The Nigerian Agric Business Group (NABG) has trained 500 women, young farmers and agric-entrepreneurs from the North-West on climate change, as well as commodity standard and grading abilities to help them compete in the market.
Dr Manzo Maigari, Director General of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, made this known at a regional workshop in Kaduna held as part of efforts to sensitize and educate participants on the concerns of climate change
Speaking during the workshop, which was funded by the federal and state governments of the Northwest, Maigari said that it would teach attendees about commodity standards, best farming practices, and commodity grading.
“This is a regional workshop for 500 youth, and women farmers from the North-west across the agric business value chain,”he said. “The thrust of the workshop is to first, achieve inclusiveness which is why it is particularly targeted at women”.
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In his remarks, Kaduna state Commissioner for Agriculture, Malam Husseini Ibrahim said that agriculture should be considered by all as a business.
“We need to mechanise agriculture. Any nation that depends on another country to feed itself is not a strong nation even with the biggest army,” he said. “We depend on wet farming; we need to develop irrigation farming. We can farm maize three times in a year; many crops can be farmed multiple times in a year if we want farmers to live a decent life.”
On his part, a Professor of Geography from Taraba State University, Emeka Oruonye, said that it was imperative for small-scale farmers to grow more food crops and increase their income, to mitigate poverty and achieve food security.
“The greatest challenge facing farmers today is how to meet the increasing food demand to meet population growth. Climate volatility, more frequent extreme weather and temperature changes increasingly threaten the viability of food crop production,” he said.
This story was adapted from Blueprint.
