FAO provides $350,000 technical support for farm irrigation

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations has provided $350,000 in technical support for irrigation farming in Nigeria.

The fund comes under the Technical Cooperation Programme which member states enjoy through the sectors under FAO mandate.

The Country Representative of the FAO Fred Kafeero during a visit to the Minister of Water Resources Engr Suleiman Adamu said the FAO made the money available following the request of the Minister to increase and promote irrigation farming, especially in Niger State.

He reiterated the availability of FAO to interface with the Ministry on regular basis with the aim of working towards attaining food security in Nigeria and enhance economic growth.

“Today we want to talk a little about the technical cooperation program which FAO is discussing with the Ministry for some time and for which we managed to set aside technical assistance worth $350,000 as part of our technical assistance to the request that was made by the Minister to increase and promote irrigation farming, especially in Niger State.

“We want to reiterate that we are available and will continue to interface with your officials on a regular basis to ensure that we are able to serve this country to attain food security and also to ensure that we can get economic growth out of the work that we do in agriculture.

“We also have got activities that we do in the area of crop and livestock to ensure that farmers are able to produce all year round and that farmers livestock get water for use, and therefore the way we manage these resources is very important and that’s why we really need to strengthen our cooperation,” he noted.

Kafeero, therefore, said, “my only request to the Minister and the officials is that we can use this opportunity to be able to actually upscale the work that we want to do together because we think that is innovative work in terms of how we can be able to bring micro-irrigation to as many farmers as possible and that would require that we plugin very well into the existing programs of the Ministry and also the new ones the Ministry is trying to put in place.”

The Deputy FAO Country Representative Suleiman Abubakar explained that the Technical Cooperation Program is normally internal affairs or resources that is set aside to support the request of member countries, specifically the government of those countries in addressing technical issues or unlocking any potential or releasing any constrain to sectors linked to FAO’s areas of mandate.

He said, “normally, these amounts are not much in terms of quantity but it would provide support to either demonstrate some technologies as in the case of the current technical cooperation program that we are developing with the Ministry of Water Resources in the area of drip irrigation system which has been identified by the irrigation department of the Ministry as an innovative approach to promote access to irrigation facilities particularly for smallholder farmers and also to building institutional capacity to existing River Basin authorities that have the mandate as well to promote access to water for agriculture and Agro related production systems.

The activities of the project include an appraisal or design review of the identified pilot project to benchmark existing performance efficiency of the scheme, carry out feasibility and detailed design reports for the implementation of drip irrigation system, support the installation process of drip irrigation facilities until commissioning and testing at project sites, among others.

This project is for the identification and conversion of a suitable (and existing) public irrigation project from a flood-based irrigation system to a low-energy drip irrigation system.

The idea is to employ efficient on-farm water management practices to produce even MORE crops, on the same land, using less amount of water.

This concept will provide the opportunity to bring more land under cultivation utilizing existing irrigation facilities. Secondly, it will also assist in guiding the Federal Ministry of Water Resources (FMWR) efforts towards job creation and increased self-sufficiency in food production.

On his part, and the Minister Water Resources Engr Adamu commended FAO they provided in developing the national irrigation policy and strategy.

He said there should be synergy between FAO and the Federal Ministry of Water Resources because there are number of uses of water resources, to supply hydropower but the main use is for irrigation for agriculture.

He said statistics show that about 70 per cent of water resources go to irrigation globally, and there is no way FAO will be talking of food and agriculture without talking about water.

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