The Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA) over two years has been implementing some agricultural projects in Nasarawa state. Recently, they organised a media field visit to some of the communities where they projects are located. COLLINS NNABUIFE was on the trip and he writes from Nasarawa
Agriculture no doubt is the major source of livelihood for rural communities. Families engage in subsistence farming to feed themselves, sell a smaller portion to raise money to address other needs.
In Nasarawa state, agricultural activities are well pronounced especially in the rural communities where farmers venture into rice, maize, cassava and other staple crops production to feed them and sell some to earn money.
Agriculture in these rural communities suffer setback as a result of poor farm management, lack of record keeping, lack of processing machines and unavailability of farm inputs such as seed and fertiliser.
Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA), a Japanese based agriculture development organization in the past two years has been implementing agricultural programs in Nasarawa state.
SAA exposed the rural farmers to climate smart farming, technologies, educated on modern ways of farming and guided them on how to work as cooperative societies in order to earn money from agriculture and support their families.
The Country Director of SAA Nigeria, Godwin Atser during a visit to Nasarawa state said that SAA has invested over $1 million as agricultural interventions in Nasarawa State over a period of two years and farmers are already reaping the benefits.
Atser said SAA is a Nippon Foundation-funded project which came into Nigeria in 1992 with major focus on increasing the productivity of maize, cassava, millet, sorghum and rice.
He said currently, SAA IS building two aggregation centres in Obi local government and also in Lafia local government.
In Agabiji Community in Lafia Local Government Area, SAA encouraged the Agabiji Young Farmers Association with 25 members to register with the state government as a cooperative society and also identify with Bank of Agriculture.
Shuaibu Abdullahi Agabija, the secretary of Agabija young farmers association said “we were trained on modern ways of farming and since we started practicing we have seen improvement. We were also educated on how to do dry season farming, we tried it on shumbo, onion and rice and the crops did very well.
“SAA also taught how to make money from agriculture, since then we have made money through produce contribution and monthly contribution and even gave out loans at the tune of N200,000 to 20 of our members. We also gave out N150,000 loan to 6 non-members of our group”.
He said since he started doing agriculture with SAA, he has achieved many things like modern ways of farming, livestock keeping and harvest contribution. “We have not been doing all these things before, but since SAA entered our community we started all these things”, he noted.
“We have new knowledge in farming; we have knapsack sprayers that they gave to us. We spray on people’s farms and they pay us for the services. We were given fertiliser, improved rice seed and other seeds for our farms”, he added.
As part of its effort assist the farmers further, SAA link up the farmers with the off-takers after the aggregation of the produce, to buy up their produce immediately they harvest. This will also ease the issue of transporting their products to market.
During harvest, based on their agreement, each member of the group will donate at least two basins of their harvest; the farmers will store the products and sell when the price appreciates. This is the easiest way to generate money for the group.
The Program Officer, Market Oriented Agriculture, SAA, Jonathan Yassah said one of the activities they do is to train the farmers on enterprise management, so that they can keep their records, and encourage them to go into Community Saving for investment in agribusiness, which is a way the members of the group contribute money in small units until when they have substantial amount so they can start giving out loans to themselves.
In Doma Local Government Area, the Amoyi Rice Farmers Multipurpose Cooperative Society with have benefited from SAA in terms of capacity building, financial management and good agronomic practices.
Ahmed Musa, Chairman Amoyi Rice Farmers Multipurpose Cooperative Society, Doma local government said before the arrival of SAA to their community, they don’t store their rice paddy, but after a training session, they were taught how to store rice paddy by SAA.
“We benefited so many things from SAA in terms of capacity building. As farmers, before we sell out our produce within the farm, but SAA advised us to harvest and store our produce, then sell them when the prices appreciate.
“They trained on good agricultural practices, how to manage our farm implements and other activities. The educated us on group strengthening, how to organise ourselves, keep records of our activities and open accounts with financial institutions.
“Before we don’t store our rice paddy, but now we store them, when we are in need especially payment of school fees for our children, we sell the paddy, use the money and pay the school fees.
Through the intervention of SAA, the group has been able to procure a 200/200 plot of land from the money they saved to expand their rice farm, they also purchased motorcycle for one of their members.
After their training with, the farmers learnt how to use nursery beds to grow rice, and they are now getting 70 to 80 bags of rice per hectare which is about 7.7 tons per hectare.
Amina Ishiaka one of the members of the group said “I sell rice, cassava and Garri, before I do my business with N30,000, but since SAA came and built my capacity, I have improved my business, currently now, I have over N300,000 I made from my business, I use it to assist my family and my husband, I pay my children’s fees”.
SAA also assisted Dacewa Multipurpose Cooperative Society in Shabu Community, Lafia Local Government Area good agronomic practice for rice production and also trained them on climate smart method of planting rice.
Ngaji Abu, Secretary, Dacewa Multipurpose Cooperative Society said the new technologies SAA introduced to them has helped them has helped in increasing their yield.
“The new technology that SAA has brought to us has helped us a lot, and we have seen the yield improvement. Before when we plant rice locally, we hardly get up to 20 bags per hectare Dacewa Multipurpose cooperative but now, just a demonstration plot of 20/50 meters and the technology of Bokashi and Biochar was applied, we harvested 135kg of rice.
“SAA has taught us real technology of rice production from the nursery to the transplanting and even making the base. They taught us how to make a base to mitigate flooding in our farms and manage water in the soil. We have become pillars of other farmers’ groups in rice production”, Abu said.
Ibrahim Faggie, Coordinator Regenerative agriculture for SAA said the essence of the project is not showcasing good agronomic practices but they want to address the issue of climate change that is resulting as a result of rice production. He said in rice production, there are lots of greenhouse gas emissions.
Bokashi and Biochar are Japanese technologies that was introduced to the which is used to amend soil. The project is funded by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In Assakio Community, Lafia Local Government, the Apashi Woza Cooperative Society, experienced a reformed cooperative society after SAA educated them on recordkeeping and other technics of running the society.
Sabahia James, Secretary of Apashi Woza Cooperative Society, said SAA has helped the association a lot before now, we were running the cooperative as a community contribution that at the end of the year, we share whatever we contribute and everybody take it home.
“They (SAA) intervened and educated us, we have adopted what they taught us, we are no longer the way we were before, and they have introduced a new method of farming to us.
“In our rice farms, they taught us how to transplant and we are seeing the difference with our old method of farming, because the yield we got this year is higher than what we were getting in the past years.
“They educated us on the importance of keeping records and having personal accounts and cooperative accounts. We now give loans to our members to farm and open businesses. At the beginning of the planting season, we buy inputs and give to our members as loans, at the end of the season; they pay back with 10 per cent interest.
“SAA has really improved us, we are not operating locally as before, the cooperative society started in 2015, we are like role models to the members of the community because of how SAA changed our lives especially in farms and mode of operation.
SAA is also constructing an aggregation centre in Assakio community. The aim according to Ade Sugh, Senior Program Officer SAA in charge of the Aggregation Centre,” is to get an aggregation centre for the farmers so that they will be bringing their seeds which will go through process, after removing the husk, they will have a finished rice product that will be sold out or consumed by the farmer. We are looking at 1 to 5 ton per day rice milling capacity”.
Anyawoza Cooperative Society,is located in Lafia local government, has 25 members who are women. They were trained on agriculture production and how to consume the food they produce because of its nutritional value.
These women were trained on agriculture production and we also passed them the knowledge on how they will be able to utilise what they have grown. We are not training them to grow and sell, but also to consume what they have grown, that will ensure that the household will have the benefit of healthy diet.
Another component is market oriented agriculture, that is why you see them trying to diversify their income, so they rear chicken, fish and making some money out of it, because we ensure that having that kind of economic leverage, they will be able to access nutrition diet locally, Yahaya Yahuza, Technical Coordinator Nutrition Sensitive Agriculture SAA said.
Oyeka Ayuba, Chairperson of Anyawoza Cooperative Society, said “we have enjoyed so much in SAA they have taught us so many things that have improved our cooperative society which has made us to go forward. They trained us on how to add value to our businesses with new business technics”.
At Seresere Rice Processing Cooperative, in Kwandare, Lafia Local Governmnet, Hajiya Halima Abdullahi, one of the members of the Cooperative said before now, they have been processing their rice using the traditional method, but when SAA came to them, they were trained on how to process using the modern method after which they provided some rice processing machines for them.
She said they were given rice polisher, de-stoner and other materials that are needed for rice processing, and since then, there are changes in their lives because they are able to train their children in schools.
In Nunku, Akwanga Local government, SAA trained 25 women in the group on modern ways of farming maize. They women were also supported with pro-vitamin A maize seed, fertilizer, chemical and maize milling machine.
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