By Samuel
The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has revealed that a total of $329 million has been budgeted for the Value Chain Development Programme (VCDP) in Nigeria.
The programme is a collaborative effort of the Federal Government, IFAD, and Olam Nigeria.
According to the Country Representative for IFAD, Nadine Gbossa, the partnership has abetted smallholder farmers in terms of access to markets for their outputs, with a resultant increase in income.
“Before the IFAD, OLAM and VCDP partnership, many of the smallholder farmers were involved in subsistence farming.
“However, they are now able to market their produce because a firm like Olam purchases over 90 percent of paddy rice.
“Data show that the smallholder farmers have increased their income by 79 percent.
“The number of children attending secondary schools for VCDP households has increased by 17 percent, so it means that more of the farmers are able to send their children to secondary schools when the norm then was just sending them to primary schools,” She told newsmen.
Vice President Farming Initiatives, Olam Nigeria, Reji George, on his part said that farmers’ yields had increased from two metric tonnes per hectare to an average of four metric tonnes per hectare since the VCDP was launched.
“About 50 percent of the total capacity of Olam’s rice mill in Rukubi, Nasarawa State, is obtained through the direct buy-back from these programmes from different states.
“We expect a higher scope this year because while we had 9,757 farmers in 2019, we have doubled the number of registered farmers this year, which is about 18,646 registered farmers.
“What is significant to us is that this programme has helped us to meet up with the requirement rice paddy for the rice mills in Rukubi in Nasarawa State and Amarava Mill in Kano State,” he stated.
VCDP was launched in 2014 to generate wealth for smallholder farmers, by improving their livelihoods, while also enhancing food security in the country.
For this project, IFAD will contribute about $250m while Olam and the FG will contribute $79m.
