Sasakawa Africa Association, a programme that is supporting farmers in Nigeria to boost their farm yields with modern technologies has been commended for making farming a more easy and lucrative venture.
The commendation was made by peasant farmers in some rural communities in Gombe who expressed excitement over the much-improved harvest they have witnessed over the years as a result of embracing the new methods, techniques, and farm inputs introduced to them by the Sasakawa Africa Association.
The excited farmers who joyfully displayed their farm produce, particularly maize, soya beans, sorghum, rice, groundnuts among many others when a group of Journalists visited them in their various locations, explained how embracing Regenerative Agriculture, Market Oriented Agriculture, and other farming techniques and methods has improved their yields and helped their lives within the last twelve months.
In the rural villages of Popandital, Billiri LGA, and Yateren, Shongom LGA of the State, some of the farmers gave technical explanations of how Sasakawa personnel continuously visited, monitored, and trained them on the farming procedure from the beginning of clearing their fields up to the harvest, processing and packaging the farm produces for longevity as well as marketing.
One of the beneficiaries, Ignatius Alhaji, told the Journalists how just few ridges gave him two and a half bags of soya beans and four and a half bags of maize.
In his explanation, Ignatius Alhaji was particular about the ridging process and distance in sowing of maize and soya beans in the same farm.
According to him, “I partitioned the farm into four-four ridges and a good distance of sowing for both maize and soya beans in the same farm of twenty ridges and and I harvested over six bags of both maize and soya beans, two for soya beans and four for maize.”
He added, “We were taught to sow only one seed instead of sowing multiple seeds on the farm as we were used to, and the result is what we are witnessing today.”
“We thank Sasakawa Africa Association for this new initiative and hope that they come again to introduce new things to us. They’ve convinced us and we’re not regretting”, Mr Ignatius pointed out.
Other farmers, Fatai Yusuf Danladi, Mrs Roseline Mela, and a few others, testified to the positive impact of Sasakawa intervention on a renewed lifestyle that affects their dieting and that of their children as well as improving their financial status.
Fatai Yusuf told our Correspondent how he got more money and changed his old motorcycle to a new one.
Another feature of the Sasakawa intervention is the way the farmers were encouraged to organize themselves into cooperative associations, as it was particularly observed that there were more Women Cooperative Farmers Associations in Yateren and healthy-looking children in the community who turned out during what became a variety of food show.
At the end of both activities in the two villages, guests comprising Sasakawa personnel led by Mr Ibrahim Garba Fagge, Technical Coordinator, Regenerative Agriculture, SAA; staff of Gombe State Agricultural Development Programme; Gombe State Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry as well as Journalist were treated to sumptuous meals from the farms of the rural communities.
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