World Bank invests N209mn on 3000 farmers in Kano

The project promotes the growth of drought tolerant maize.
The World Bank said on Friday that it spent over N209 million on over 3000 farmers under its assisted Commercial Agriculture Development Project, CADP, in Kano State.

A breakdown of the beneficiaries, according to the Bank’s Senior Operations Specialist and Task Team Leader of the project, Lucas Akapa, include 1, 637 males and 1, 502 women.

Mr. Akapa, who was speaking at the opening of the 8th World Bank Project Implementation Mission to Kano State, said that CADP has recorded notable achievements, especially with regard to productivity, value addition and marketed surplus.

“These achievements are directly attributable to increased adoption of improved technologies, increased access to improved infrastructure and enhanced capacity of the beneficiaries to effectively participate in project implementation,” Mr. Akapa said.

The project in Kano, Mr. Akapa said, promoted Draught Tolerant Maize, DTM, in the traditionally non-maize growing areas using and adopting the System of Rice Intensification, SRI, amongst rice farmers, which resulted in average yield increase from 2.7 metric tons to 3.6 metric tons per hectare.

In the area of rice processing, the Task team leader said CADP was able to encourage the adoption of flash-drying technology by rice processors by reducing drying time from 12 hours to three hours per ton, resulting in increased production efficiency of beneficiaries and the satisfaction of clients.

The project, he said, also assisted beneficiaries to upgrade their cow breeds through the use of Artificial Insemination Technology, AIT, and improved feed supplement, which resulted in the increase in the volume of milk from 2.15 litres to 4 litres per cow per day and overall increase in the income for the farmers.

The National Project Coordinator of CADP, Amin Babandi, acknowledged the support of the Kano State Government towards the smooth implementation of the project in the state, pointing out that the main purpose of the mission was to gather inputs from the participating states for the restructuring of the project to align with their agricultural policies for enhanced performance and the required impact.

The Kano State Commissioner of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Baraka Sani reiterated the importance of the current restructuring of the project, adding that if properly restructured, the project would receive more support from stakeholders, especially the state government, which would in turn translate to more support for farmers.

The commissioner also implored the project to take advantage of Kano State irrigation facilities to boost commercial production of dry season rice and maize, describing Kano as the home of irrigation farming in Nigeria, with 17 functional dams.

“It is therefore, my hope and prayer that, CADP will take advantage of these potentials to boost commercial production of dry season rice and maize,” Mrs. Sani said.

Meanwhile, the state government said five farm access roads were constructed at a total cost of over N465 million to open up inaccessible agrarian communities.