The Federal Government, in collaboration with the International Fund for Agricultural Development-Value Chain Development Program (IFAD/VCDP), has distributed rice farm inputs worth more than N25 million to farmers in Enugu.
The National Program Coordinator, IFAD/VCDP, Dr. Fatima Aliyu, while addressing farmers, noted that they had discovered that rice does well in the dry season and encouraged beneficiaries to make use of the inputs to improve their productivity.
VCDP focuses on supporting cassava and rice value chains for smallholder farmers in the six states of Anambra, Benue, Ebonyi, Niger, Ogun, and Taraba, through an inclusive strategy that involves strengthening the capacity of actors along the chain, including producers and processors, as well as public and private institutions, service providers, policymakers, and regulators.
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Aliyu, who was represented by the Value Chain Development Program Agricultural Production Adviser, Dr. Chyka Unamma, added that Enugu remains one of the best out of the six beneficiary states of the VCDP intervention.
The National Coordinator disclosed that they only support farmers in groups and not individuals and that whatever concerns rice and cassava is their responsibility, which is why it is called the “value chain,” since VCDP supports farmers in production, processing, and marketing.
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The inputs were distributed at the IFAD/VCDP office in Enugu to mark the beginning of the agency’s 2022–2023 dry season agro-input distribution of items including bags of rice seeds, bags of NPK fertilizers, bags of Indorama Urea fertilizers, herbicides, de-stoning machines, water pumps, rice milling machines, cassava processing machines, rice planters, and harvesters.
Dr. Edward Isiwu, State Program Coordinator IFAD/VCDP, revealed that the state initially planned for 53 hectares of land before receiving an additional 43 hectares from the national, bringing the total to 96 hectares for this dry-season rice farming.
