The Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and Value Seed are set to train and empower 50,000 women and youth under the Gender Consortium project.
The Gender Consortium which is an initiative of AGRA and jointly implemented with Value Seed is a 3-year project which is targeted to touch the lives of smallholder women and youth farmers.
In an interview with the AGRA Project Lead at Value Seed, Idoko Gabriel during a sensitization exercise on the project, he said in the Gender Consortium project, Value Seeds will train the women in different capacities like seeds production.
He said 500 women will be reached out to for this, and after production, the project will off-take these seeds so it’s a plus to them.
“We also have women we’re going to give value kit technology and I think from the success stories of the previous women, the least harvested 0.9mt/ha, so the payback is 3 bags (15kg).
“We have women who harvested 15 bags and after giving us 3, went away with 12 bags. We also linked them to premium markets that bought these seeds at very high prices.
“I think at the end of the day, these women’s lives will be touched and they’ll see changes right from seeds to vegetable and value kit production,” he said.
Speaking on the targeted market, Gabriel said “We’re targeting women aged eighteen to sixty and youth (men) between the ages of eighteen and thirty.”
He said AGRA and Value Seed partnered in 2018 on the AGRA Kaduna consortium which was a three-year project in which 281,000 farmers were reached.
“The project was very great, we did well in the project and I believe that’s why AGRA felt that Value Seeds needs to be included in this current Gender Consortium Project, because of the role we played then.
“When we started the project, most of the communities we went to during the sensitisation didn’t know Value Seeds but when it came to implementation, we established demo plots of a quarter hectare and also gave out small packs of seeds called baby demo.
“I think from there, Value Seeds has become very prominent in the state. Farmers keep calling us to book seeds.
Commenting on the role of Value Seed in the project, Gabriel said “Our role in this new Gender Consortium Project was derived from the role we played in the last project.
“As I said earlier, we reached out to 2,615 women with this Value kit technology, which is designed for a quarter hectare of land.
“Because we engaged these women and also linked them to premium markets where they sell their produce, we gave them improved seed varieties such as PVA maize and quality protein maize after which so many other women showed interest. When this Gender Consortium came on board, we decided this is where we belong.
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