Jigawa: 40,000 wheat farmers trained on project management

JIgawa state government, in partnership with Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL), just launched the training of 2,000 agricultural extension workers and leaders of Wheat farmers groups under the 2023/2024 national Wheat farming projects on project management training in the state.

Flagging up the training in Dutse, the state capital, the managing of the director Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL), Alhaji Abbas Umar Masanawa, said that “the JIgawa state government has collaborated with NIRSAL and bring expertise and experience to bear on Nigeria’s pursuit of a bumper wheat harvest this year”.

The managing director, who was represented by Mr Suleiman Ibrahim explained that “A total of 355 extension agents and 706 farmer cluster leaders from Kiyawa, Birnin Kudu, Ringim, Hadejia, and Kazaure took part in the first phase of the training sessions, which were held in four of the five emirates in State”.

According to him “The participants are expected to transmit the knowledge gained along with the training materials received to the members of their respective clusters of over 800 wheat farmers groups with members of 50 people each to a total of 40,000 wheat farmers registered under the state/national 2023 wheat production project”.

He stated further that in the modules for the training programme a deep dive into possible protocol breaches and the early warning systems put in place to address the early warning systems for detecting and arresting any issues capable of derailing the project before they blossom.

“The participants were also taught effective produce aggregation as a critical success factor”, he emphasis.

The managing director maintained that the country is spending six million US Dollars importing the wheat annually, “it is really huge amount of money”.

“NIRSAL is an initiative of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) established to innovatively and independently de-risk agriculture and agribusiness financing in Nigeria, with a view to stimulating the flow of finance and investment into the Agricultural Value Chain from multiple sources. Logic for the Jigawa training exercise is provided by one of the five pillars of NIRSAL Technical Assistance, under which value chain fixing initiatives are researched, developed, and promoted.

In his part the JIgawa State Commissioner of Agriculture, Muttaka Namadi, is keeping tabs on all collaborators, managing relationships, and supervising performance.

The Commissioner represented by the Birninkudu zonal extension officer, Malam Hamisu B Muhammed commended NIRSAL for its commitment to the Jigawa Wheat project, counting on the support to lead to the success of the project. Similar sentiment was expressed by the participants of the capacity development program who attested that the program gave them new insights for their work.