Centre to trains 90,000 farmers on maize production in Kaduna, Kano
Centre to trains 90,000 farmers on maize production in Kaduna, Kano
Maize
By Ezra Musa
Kaduna, March 20, 2020 (NAN) Green Innovation Centre for the Agricultural and Food Sector (GIAFS), says it will train 90, 000 smallholder farmers in Kaduna and Kano states on new innovations and techniques to boost maize production.
The project’s Value Chain Advisor, Malam Mohammed Ubale, made this Known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Kaduna on Friday.
Ubale said that the beneficiaries would be drawn from 15 Local Government Areas (LGAs) in each of the states, adding that the training would be conducted between 2020 and 2022.
He said that 140,000 farmers were earmarked for the training, adding that 50,000 maize farmers had been trained within the last two years.
Ubale said the project was in collaboration with the Kaduna State Agricultural Development Project where they train extension agents every year with innovations of Good Agricultural Practice (GAP).
“We have trained 50 extension agents in Kaduna and Kano on technical aspects on yearly basis on existing trends to extend those training to farmers so they can practice it on their farms.”
He said the project was collaborating with premier seeds to sensitise farmers on the need to buy seeds every year to improve production.
On innovation, he said the project was looking at innovations from the grassroots in accordance with GAP in optimising production.
“A farmer in Kano locally invented “Seed digger” using bicycle scraps which are superb meeting GAP to dig holes for planting seeds.
“If you ask a farmer to follow GAP by sowing one seed per hole at 20 to 10 centimeter; most smallholder farmer cannot.
“So the machine saves the tediousness of digging the hole to sow seed but by just pushing the seed digger which will dig a hole precisely to put a seed.”
The project advisor said the innovation was being currently being tested by extension agents with farmers in 15 LGAs.
He said the project in Kaduna which also enlightened farmers through the Farmers Business School extension agents, showed farmers improved access to the farmers market. (NAN)
EMZ/AMM/GY
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Edited by Abiemwense Moru/Grace Yussuf