The Value Chain and Development Programme (VCDP) has assisted farmers to boost productivity from 1.5 tonnes per hectare of rice production to an average of 5 tonnes per hectare, Dr. Fatimah Aliyu, National Project Coordinator, VCDP has said.
Dr. Aliyu made this known at the FGN/IFAD Country Strategic Opportunities Programme (COSOP 2024-2029) Annual Results Review on Thursday in Abuja.
According to her, one of the objectives of IFAD VCDP is to enhance incomes and food security for rural households involved in cassava and rice value chains, adding that farmers in cassava and rice value chains under the programme are yielding results above the conventional production levels.
In her words: “ Our farmers are involved in the whole value chain from production, processing, value addition, to marketing, that is from the farm to the table. We build their capacities to produce and to increase their productivity, which we’ve been able to do across benefiting states.
“ We have increased the productivity of our farmers from 1.5 tons per hectare to an average of five tons per hectare and over for rice. and for cassava we’ve increased their productivity to about 35 tons per hectares.”
She further explained that the beneficiaries are monitored after each production and processing period to evaluate their progress. “We don’t just leave them like that. The VCDP has processing centers for both cassava and rice, where our farmers also process their produce.
“We have people whose job is processing. They are not producers. So our farmers also, I call them farmers, let me say beneficiaries, that are processors. And we build processing centres for those FOs that are only processing. So they take from our own farmers and also from farmers around to produce that rice and sell it to the market. Among the beneficiaries are farmers, processors, service providers, financiers and marketers.
“The marketers are only buying to sell. We also have market stores that are reserved for beneficiary groups in order to enhance their market access.
“We have aggregation centers where we aggregate for marketing. We also have the Commodity Alliance Forum, which is an association of everybody that is part of the value chain. It is a win-win association.
“We have service providers, those that sell inputs. We have off-takers. Some of them just come to buy and sell. I told you we have marketers. They buy our product, the produce from the farmers directly to process. There are some that buy only the processed products, and sell to the market.”
Fatimah pointed out that VCDP is not just about providing access to finance, but it involves every part of the value chain. “We have financiers, who are also part of that curve. They provide financial services, both formal and informal and provide value chain financing.”
“We also register our products with NAFDAC so they can penetrate any market, whether it’s national or international. We don’t just do production, we operate from the very beginning to the end of the value chain so that’s how VCDP works.
“We promote a lot of agribusinesses and organise a lot of training on improvement,” she added.
On his part, Dr. Sanni Abiodun, National Project Coordinator, LIFE-ND, disclosed what the project is now doing to enhance the nutritional value of products from beneficiaries.
Specifically, Abiodun said LIFE-ND is engaged in food fortification, by adding vitamins and minerals to produce during processing to improve their nutritional value.