How EU, Oxfam are helping farmers in Adamawa

OSARETIN OSADEBAMWEN reports that poor communities in northern Nigeria may heave a sigh of relief soon as the European Union and its partners are set to lift tens of thousands of people out of poverty through a project that is already ongoing.

 

REAL wealth has slipped into and begun sprouting in many homes in some rural communities of Adamawa State. The positive phenomenon is growing out of the resilience of the people who though beaten down by poverty, have taken their destinies in their own hands to reverse the situation.

Their resilience has paid off, boosted by the partnership of the European Union and its Oxfam partners including Development Exchange Culture ((DEC) and the Christian Rural Urban Development Association of Nigeria (CRUDAN) to combat poverty in the communities and support their efforts to have access to basic human comfort.

One of the partners, Pro Resilience Action (PROACT), has designed a template which determines the admittance of participants into the project with a view to building up their personal income and gradually taking them out of poverty.

It all started over three years ago, in April 2016, when the European Union mobilised €10 million with an additional co-financing fund of €1.1 million from Oxfam to fund the PROACT project. The basis was to support poor rural community to conquer malnutrition and absolute lack by teaching them how to create and sustain wealth on their own with little or no financial seed money.

However, the enthusiasm that greeted the programme’s launch had led to an increase in the numbers of participants desirous of escaping the trap of lack and insufficiency. Over a period of time, the number of participants had increased by about 40 per cent as Adamawa State alone had recorded about 32,000 new intakes, indicating about 52 per cent increase while those in Kebbi State grew to 22,000 showing about 45 per cent increase.

The beneficiaries in Adamawa State are scattered throughout 40 communities in four local government areas of Mubi, South, Guyuk, Fufore and Song.

“Initially, we wondered how a man without means would be able to make contributions as was critical in the Village Savings and Loans Association, created by the Oxfam team,” Faluwe Magnan, a farmer turned local shop owner at Za’a Dumne rural community in Song Local Government Area of Adamawa State, told Arewa Live.

The concept of saving from almost nothing by the rural farmers, preoccupied with subsistence farming experience which leaves them with little or no savings turned out to be an inspiration of some sort to their families and immediate neighbours who knew their story and saw it changing significantly.

The VSLA is the platform that drives all the other components of the programme. The association/cooperative body gives each member access to loans three times the amount contributed. Loans are interest-free but charged on a flat rate decided by the association through what it terms ‘loan application fee’ ranging from N100 to N500 depending on the amount being accessed.

In the group, contributions/savings are not equal, but they are on a weekly basis. They range from N50 to N100 and N200. Members join the group where their income lies and where they can easily contribute the amount expected. The contributions run in a cycle of 12 months before members open the savings for sharing out among themselves by way of loans which are repayable in three months.

Each group has a maximum membership of 25 persons. They set their rules and penalties mainly in fines. It is the cumulative fund arising from all these that they have leveraged on at various times within the cycle to start a new businesses or boost the existing ones.

“If I participate in the programme and it failed, God sparing my life, I will learn my lesson. If it succeeds, I would benefit,» was Magnan’s counsel that he gave himself while showing his intention to participate in the life changing programme.

To ease poverty, which is the major reason for the scheme, just three months into membership, every member is entitled to access a loan. Today, for Magnan, a father of three, and many other local farmers and rural dwellers in those communities, it is a new dawn socio-economically.

“I loaned money four times from the associations, twice in the first year and twice in the second and third year,” Magnan told Arewa Live.

“It has been of immense help to the family, since we opened the shop for sales of items to the public, my wife does not ask me anymore for money to buy food items for cooking at home. She is in total charge of that, courtesy of the earnings from the shop.

“We also combine resources from the shop and earnings from farm produce sales to meet other needs like children’s education and hospital bills. That is a huge relief, I must tell you.

“I make a monthly turnover of N20,000 from my investment of N190,000 on a monthly basis. Where would I have been able to see this kind of money, without the intervention of these people and the VSLA?” he asked.

With the intervention of the EU and its partners, a change has come in the lives of rural farmers and dwellers, not only in Adamawa State but in other parts of Northern Nigeria. The days of farming and not having food to eat is hopefully over as the quality and quantity of farm produce are set to increase.

The results are already being seen in Za’a, Koti, and other settlements in Dumne area of Adamawa State. At Za’a community, farmers tilled the soil with very crude implements and had poor harvests.

“They opted for subsistence farming because it was the available option for legitimate earning even though it turned out that it was not sustainable,” said Yakubu Hauma of Kofare Malabu, Fufure Local Government Area of Adamawa State, adding that: “We have been farming but the yields were not much. We barely got by with the yields that we harvested after the whole labour. Unfortunately, we had to return to farm to work, because it was the only thing we knew how to do.”

Project Manager, PROACT, Olumide Ojo, gave another dimension to the background of the farmers. According to him: “All these people are not truly farmers as it were, but driven to it as the last option to survive. There are expert barbers among them, tailors, live stock farmers, livestock feed producers, businessmen. All they wanted was access to the basic training, and small loans.”

The success of the project so far which has been structured to pull in 10 million people, has necessitated calls on the federal and state governments to adopt the strategy in order to reduce poverty and increase food production in the country. This is more imperative now more than ever, as the federal government said it is targeting 100,000,000 Nigerians to be lifted off poverty in 10 years.