By ARMSTRONG BAKAM, Bauchi –
A Bauchi based Non-Governmental Organization Azurfa Women and Youth Development Initiative (AWOYDI), has empowered no fewer than 100 women in farming to boost food production and storage in Bar and Bom communities of Bogoro Local Government Area of the State.
The Founder of the NGO, Monica Tanko, stated this when she led members of her organization on a courtesy visit to the Bogoro LGA, Chairman during the empowerment of the women with agricultural inputs, herbicides and seedlings.
According to her, the organization has been working in the local government for two years empowering women in agriculture.
She said the essence of the advocacy visit to the chairman was to seek for his support in the proposed project to be carried out in the two communities in his LGA.
She informed the Chairman that the organisation has been successful in securing the DEC-SSPF grant which is been sponsored by Bread for the World (BROT) Germany.
She highlighted that the existing VSLA groups in the two communities will be formed as Small Holders Women Farmers Association (SHOWFA). As the baseline survey shows that rice and groundnut are highly cultivated in the communities as such the organisation will use that as a value chain for the groups to cultivate the rice and groundnut.
“The essence of our coming here is because we have gotten a grant from the Development Exchange Center under Germany. Since we have existing groups here in Bogoro, we still selected Bogoro as the LGA that we will work with.
“We’re going to form them as small-holder farmers and we’ve done the baseline survey and we realized that groundnuts and rice are cultivated here a lot. So, we used that as a value chain and that’s what they will plant this year.
“We came with some little resources that we will give them. We will also give them hand planters with which they would use to plant the crops. We’ll also give them rice and groundnut seedlings to plant and the essence of this is so that at the end of the day, we will help in chasing away hunger within these communities,” she said.
She added that a food bank would be developed in each of the communities and the crops will be stored in the food bank after harvest so that they can inturn locate the vulnerable households and orphans in the community and support them with the food.
Tanko sought for the moral and financial support of the Local Government Council in carrying out their set objectives saying that: “this is pilot testing and by the time this intervention succeeds, we will render more support for additional communities.
Also speaking, the Programme Officer of the NGO, Martins Kassai, said that as part of the project implementation plan, the groups will be trained on sustainable agriculture for both dry (drip farming) and raining season.
“We will support the groups each with hand planter, herbicides, seedlings and fertilizer for good yield which is aimed at reducing hunger in the community as a result of high price of food in the market.
He said: “Additionally, we did some work with some women in Boi where we trained them in dry season farming during what we call ‘drip farming’. We use waste drip from the hospital and we taught them how to use this method to cultivate vegetables during the dry season. And this is so they don’t have to buy these but to save some money to help themselves and their families.
“We appeal to the you to help us with the services of extension workers from the Council to monitor what we and the women are doing because if we have someone from the government, they will take this intervention more seriously and put in their best.”
In his response, the Caretaker Committee Chairman, Bogoro LGA, Markus Bitrus Lusa, commended the NGO for the intervention, saying this will boost food production and food sufficiency among the communities where the project is being carried out.
He said: “I am pleased to have you work in our community because this will go a long way in touching the lives of our communities significantly particularly on areas of food assistance looking at how vulnerable our communities are in terms of food shortage. Most of these women are zealous in farming, but what it takes to make farming a business is the provision of herbicides, fertilizer and the rest.
“Most of them put in so much efforts to farm but at the end of the day after harvest, they don’t get any significant yield because they don’t have fertilizer, and they also could not get herbicides to use. But with your intervention, their commitment would be raised to a very large extent and this will help increase food sufficiency.
“As a local Government, we will do all we can do because we cannot do it alone but thank God that you understand this and that is why you have come in to help in your own little way and to also complement the efforts of the government.”
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