The International money for Agricultural Development/Value Chain Development Programme, IFAD/VCDP, has received a counterpart money payment from Enugu State’s administration in the amount of N274, 000,000. This would allow the programme to successfully continue in the State.
The endeavor The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is a special United Nations organization that works to combat poverty and hunger, facilitate easier farming practices, and promote sustainability in rural areas of developing nations.
The Enugu State Programme Coordinator of IFAD-VCDP, Dr. Edward Isiwu who made this known to journalists in his office in Enugu, said that VCDP is a six-year development initiative of the Federal Government of Nigeria FGN/IFAD Programme that focuses on supporting cassava and rice value chains for small farmers.
According to Isiwu, the amount released by Mbah was an implementation support to the agricultural sector and in particular the VCDP small holder farmers to enable the State access more funds towards boosting food security and employment.
He said that the Governor had graciously paid the arrears of counterpart fund, having seen the impact of the Programme in the past two and half years in the state.
The Coordinator maintained that the Governor’s act is a determination to strengthen partnership with FGN/IFAD VCDP to support rural household farmers annually with Agro-inputs, Agro-processing equipment, market infrastructure, water supply across the benefitting LGAs for increase in crop yield and improved standard of living of the teeming farmers.
While thanking Governor Mbah for sustaining the Programme in the state, Isiwu, said that the payment would strengthen the capacity of the State Programme Management Unit (SPMU) to profile more farmers into the scheme, construct more market infrastructure, build more Rice and Cassava Processing centres, solar powered boreholes, agro-equipment, agro-inputs, develop capacity of women farmers on dietary and nutrition activities and many others.
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“We have already profiled over 10,000 farmers in our data bank benefitting from the IFAD-VCDP project and so this counterpart contribution will make us reach to more smallholder farmers, provide infrastructure to more communities and agro equipment support to farmers within the five LGAs,”.
The coordinator added that the fund would cover the areas of climate change mitigation measures in those LGAs like flood control, building the capacity of youths and women in agro enterprise development and build capacities of farmers on Good Agricultural Practices (GAP).
The coordinator stated that in 2021, Forty (40) youths drawn from these 5 LGAs were sent to the National Cereals Research Institute (NCRI) Badeggi in Niger State on learning routes to study and hone skills on how to produce certified rice and become certified rice seed entrepreneurs.Also 40 youths were sent to the National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI) Umudike, Abia state to learn how to multiply cassava stem and become cassava stem multiplication entrepreneurs.
According to him, “these youths were supported with agro inputs and equipment on return from the 40 days in each training and that they have continued to make Enugu State proud as most of the rice and cassava products being produced by these youths are all over the market today.
“These youths are making money from their efforts and they are not regretting associating with VCDP. With this counterpart contribution of the state, we will select, prepare and support more youths to such programme to commence in the next one month.
“With this, we are going to increase our work capacity by 100 per cent to ensure we deliver on our assignment as provided by IFAD and Enugu State government for the rural poor. Apart from numerous successes recorded in the last two years, the Coordinator, highlighted that the funds will facilitate a drawdown from IFAD for the up-coming and ongoing projects as enshrined IFAD VCDP 2023 Annual Work Plan and Budget (AWPB).”
To alleviate the sufferings of ndi Enugu farmers, the Programme, according to the coordinator, has 12 Solar powered boreholes to be sited at various communities in the LGAs soon and when the Procurement processes are completed by IFAD.
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