DAILY TRUST
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Business/Agric
FeT fa rmers train on post harvest storage B~ Abubakar Sadiq
bah
TH E Agriculture and Rural De\oc\opmenl 5«relarial orlhe Federal Capital Territory Autho rity (FCTA) has commenced .sen sitlzatio n .....o rkshop for you ths at Gwagwalada, o n post harvest storage for agricultu ral products in th e area.
Fadama III spends N1.2bn in South-east By Idrls Ahmed T HE Fadama III Project hll$ runded abouI2,600subprojects lotalling over N 1.2 billion In the South -east zone of the country. the World Bank has said. These we re also contained In th e va rious slatus reporlJ presented by the fh'e Project Implemenlatio n Units (PIUs) in the zone.
Out of this num ber. abou t 260 subprojects ha"e been completed. wh ile the rest are at vario us levels of satisfactory completion. The zont comprists Ab ia. Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and imostales. Ove r 683 Fadama Co mmunity Associations (FCAs) and 7.7 12 Fadama Users Groups (FUGs) are aJrcadybenefinlng.
Some of the funded sub· projects. accord ing to the reports, include rural roads. culverts, markets, slOntge cold rooms, poultri es, cassava processing miUs, palm 011 processi ng mills, fish po nds, piggerles, rice mills, among others.. Reacting on the reports, the Team Leader. Obadiah Tohomd et. noted th at what was cur-
rently happe ning in the wne encountgi ng. urging be neflclaries to maximize the bendits of th e project. He said the Worl d Bank had al ready made available $250 million, whlle the Federal, State, lOCiI Go\'e rnmen lJ and the pri mary benelidaries were pro\'iding Ihe balance of 5200 milllonofthe total $450 million package for the entiTI" project. \o'as
Director of FCT Agricultural ~velop. men! Projec t (AD P), Dr Mike Uwa-ti~ laid 1M workshop wu aimed al addmslng post
har...est loses of agrtculturn produce In the FCT. Over Ihl.': Yf'ars, aboul70pt!rcent of tot a! produce by farmers are lost. resulting to
fruslralton among farmers. The workshop is aimed to enhance high value: agricu ltural prod uce. TIle loses are traced to lnadeq u.llc ,,,lue addition and storage infrastructure across the36S lales in the counlry and Fer. "In u )'ing to address the challen~s,the Agriculru reand Rural Devdopment Secrt'tariat in coUaboralion with NAPEP decided 10 organiu this workshop to empower ),ouths on ''3.lue add Ilion and ~tonlge inter"ention,ft hI" said. The Secretar)' of the FC,. Natio nal Poverty Enldica tion Program (NAPEP). Mrs Veronica Ati said the workshop \o'as to I"nllghten youth5 and rUnll rarmers on post hU"est processing, storage and packaging o f ag rku ltural produce. She obsen'ed thai th ere is no ec(l nomic de \'e\opment in abso lute terms wi tho ut a \'irile agricul tu rod sector and there Is no \'i rlie 1'051 haDlest agrkuitunll sector wi lhoUI a well devdoped seed processing and Slorage improvement program. ~To reali te: this noble objective, there is IIttd to ha\'e trainl"d lechn ic.al pl"rsonnel in all artaS of pos t ha rvest processi ng a nd storage mechanism to enlighten th e farm· ing populace. 5h ~ said. ft
FAO gets new DG Oy lin! ft. !liman FOllMER Food se.: urit)' Minisler or BraIillo~ Graziano Da Sika has bee n elected the new Diredor-Genera l of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FA:» succeeding lacques Dir>uf who headtd the organi. zation since 1994. I),. ,1;11"" d efeated his closest rival Miguel Angel MOTOI.lin05. former r on:'t;" hU"I~'~r cor Spllin and IWU other canJidale5 from AUitria and Iran wi lh 98 \ '01..5 out or t 80 \'otes by FAD m ember states at its headquarters in Rome. A statement POSIW by tht organlr..ation said th e new chief would de\ute atte ntio n toer.tdlcalinghunger, susuin",ble food productio n and food managem enl and over.tll food sec uritr Ollld sustainable de\-elopmmt_ Oa Sih";i is the first latin American to had the United Nations (UN) agricultu re bodyand has been a senior regionai officlal of FAO since 2006. His four year term ends in 20 l S but ht is eligible for rc-declion after the apir.ttlon ofhistcrm.
'Faaafna v)'QUldJocrP(}se GDP. food security' By TIna A. Hassan TH E Task Team Leader rnL) of the Fadama 111 proJec t. " 'Ir. Abimbola Adubl said Ihe ongoin~ faduna II I project ...."Quld increase Nigerias Gross Dc "'estic Product (GDP) and make the counlry food s«:u red ifit con tinues to get atte ntion and pilrtici. pation of young people and devdopmen t partners. Speaking at the fourth general ..... r.apup mtttJ ng of the supervision missio n of the World Bank. and ~eral Government inspection team across participaling stales holding in Abuja, Adubi said unemploym ent has bttn reduced through the programme. HI" A id many people now find it com-en-
lent to use imp ro\'ed technology in fanning
'>nn",I ~(\ .'" ke advan tlle.e of t he li nks to mar-
kets availed in the programme. "Ou r radam a villages have bttn a success because the)' abo encourage the use of WUIC5 as inputs for other groups o f the project.. Through {adama, our farmers are OI.bte tocut down post harve5lloses through various methods of packaging and preservation they were introduced to in the course of the programme," he said. He said the World Bank.andotherdevdopml"nt partners hayt co ntinu ed 10 show interl"$t and support for the programme because of 1t5 success aero" th e sta tes. The National Programme Coo rd inat or o fFadama, Dr. Sukar Tijani said there has bee n a hu ge breakthrough In N igeria ua
resu lt of th e success of fadama i ll . Bukar encouraged Ihe various Slate Projec t Coorrlinators to continue 10 show good leadership 10 their members. "Fadama would soo n become a household name if \\'e kttp up our efforts in the direction o£impro\'ing on the present successes recorded through the kind of Ieadership we deliver,~ he said. He !lid young people are encouraged to handle the Information Com munication Technol ogy (lCT) componenl o r fadamJ 50 thallhey can make Iheir own contri bution and 10 reduce unemplo)'menl in th e communitl e5. " There has been I remarkable result on ground and we ""QuId want t" 'er yone to work at sustaining it; he said