Achieving food and nutrition security in the context of a growing population, climate change, worsening economic condition and poor diet among other variables, is a major challenge for Kano, Nigeria’s most populated state. The nutrition problem is largely due to poverty and lack of awareness on importance of wholesome meals.

Surprisingly, during wet and dry seasons in the state, thousands of tonnes of food such beans, soya beans, millet, sorghum, groundnut, vegetables etc are harvested locally. These foods contain all the essential nutrients necessary for healthy growth and development.

This underlined the need for Kano state Agro-Pastoral Development Project, KSADP, in collaboration with Sasakawa Africa Association, SAA, to initiate a special programme to support people in the state to ensure sustainable agriculture as well as adequate and balanced diet consumption.

KSADP, funded by the Islamic Development Bank and the Lives and Livelihoods Funds, LLF, seeks to reduce poverty, strengthen food and nutrition insecurity as well as address natural resource degradation, consistent with the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Kano State Development Plan II 2016-2025 (KSDP II) as well as the Federal Government of Nigeria‘s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) 2017-2020 and Agriculture Promotion Policy 2016-2020.

Under, the KSADP/SAA partnership, 377 Extension Agents and Community Based Facilitators (farmers trained to become focal points in each community to help improve agricultural productivity through dissemination of knowledge and skills), were trained on nutrition, to subsequently coach about 114, 000 smallholder farmers in 20 out of the 44 local government areas of the state, under the first year of the partnership.

A nutritionist coaching trainees on how to prepare good meals from locally sourced farm products

At the moment, the focus is to strengthen the extension system to support the cultivation and marketing of nutritious crops as well as improvement of nutrition education so that household nutrition and   

Hajiya Daboyi from Bunkure. “Before this training, the practice in our village is to eat rice with oil or cook tuwo (millet meal with baobab soup), which is wholly carbohydrate and not the only requirement for children and even the adults. Today, I am very happy I have understood how to cook better food like soya bean cake, wheat pap, etc using locally planted crops. I can now share with fellow women that definitely, “Abincinka Garkuwarka” – literally meaning “your food is your protection”.

She is convinced that with good food, the youth and women can become stronger, thus, be able to work for more hours in the farms. This, coupled with extension education and inputs support, will lead to enhanced agricultural production. 

On his part, Sa’idu Musa, a 49 year old farmer from Kabo local government area with a wife, seven children and some dependants, said he never knew the implication nutritious food on his children’s physical and mental health. “I have been farming since I was a boy but I only grow and sell the crops. I don’t know balanced diet. I used to think that good food is for the rich men in the city. With this knowledge gained, I will keep some of the crops I plant not just for cash but for my wife to prepare good food which will make the children hale and hearty”.

Abdurrashid H. Kofar Mata, the KSADP/SAA Project Coordinator explained that “the nutrition training, one of the several trainings to be conducted by the project, was primarily to teach beneficiaries, especially women, the impact of adequate nutrition on pregnancy outcomes and child development, highlight the benefit of proper nutrition and teach women how to prepare nutritious foods from locally harvested ingredients”.

No doubt, KSADP/SAA’s approach towards addressing food and nutrition security by training important stakeholders will expose communities in Kano state to the use of locally available crops to prepare healthy diets for their families, thereby reducing malnutrition, poverty and improving overall community wellbeing.

Ameen K. Yassar

Communication Specialist, KSADP

It is no longer news that early in January 2021, the Kano State Agro Pastoral Development Project (KSADP) awarded the contract for the repair and rehabilitation of the Watari Irrigation Scheme to Messrs. Hajaig Nigeria Limited, for the sum of NGN 315 million and is expected to be completed within six months. The award of the contract was celebrated by thousands of farmers from Bagwai, Bichi, Tofa and surrounding Local Government Areas in Kano State.

The irrigation scheme, which is situated downstream of the Watari dam, in Bagwai Local Government Area of Kano State, has potential to irrigate 2, 600 ha when completed. The irrigation scheme is used for both wet and dry season farming of major high value crops such as rice, wheat, onions, maize, tomatoes, lettuce, cabbage, pepper and garlic etc.

It is pertinent to mention that before the coming of the KSADP, which is funded by the Islamic Development Bank under the Lives and Livelihoods Fund, the Watari Dam and the its downstream infrastructure which was constructed over 40 years ago had not undergone any major repairs for more than twenty years. As such large, areas of the downstream infrastructure especially the canals, embankment and reservoirs have become silted and, in most cases, broken down. The inability of the government to repair these infrastructure had resulted in more than 2, 314 farmers losing their means of livelihoods as only about 52 percent can cultivate their crops twice a year, while the rest of the farmers can only cultivate their crops during the wet season as a result. It is instructive however, to note that out of the existing 962 hectares of farmland covered by the irrigation scheme, about 45 percent of the land is not in use due to the dilapidation of the irrigation infrastructure. This has continued to translate into huge economic loss for thousands of farmers.

It is worth mentioning that before the commencement of the project execution, officials of the Kano Ministry of Agriculture, Kano State Agricultural and Rural Development Authority (KNARDA) and PMU held several meetings with representatives of farmers associations to intimate them about the objective of the IsDB funded project and the plan to repair the broken-down sections of the irrigation scheme. The plan also includes the stoppage of the release of water from the dam so that the repair works can be carried out without any hindrance. This was a huge decision on the part of the government as the stoppage of the release of the water will have huge implication for those farmers that carry out their dry season farming activities within the scheme. Any delays in the commencement of the repair works could have huge implications for the farmers and their means of livelihoods.

The repair works commenced in earnest in January 2021 and started with the repair of gully erosion on the dam’s embankment, repair and desilting of main canal and drainages as well as desilting and repair of the night storage reservoir.

As at March 2021, the first phase of the work which comprises repair of the dam’s main canal and desilting of its night reservoir was completed. This development led to the release of water for irrigation purposes while other aspects of the repair works on the dam continued. The release of the water was done in the presence of the Managing Director of Kano Agricultural and Rural Development Agency, KNARDA, Dr. Junaid Yakubu Muhammad, KSADP officials and representatives of many farmers associations in the area.

“Expressing his gratitude on behalf of farmers, the Chairman of the Watari Farmers Association, Malam Ibrahim Sani described the KSADP intervention as “a new lease of life for the farming communities in the domain”. He stated that “Our lives and the lives of our families depend on this dam. We do not know anything other than farming throughout the year.

Look at the smiling faces all around you – the children, the adults and the youths. For us it is farming, farming and joy”.“For many years, we and people from other places who come to work on the fields have yearned for this intervention. Now it has been made possible by the Government of Kano State with financing from the Islamic Development Bank. We thank Allah for his mercies. We are eager to see this work completed and as you can see, our people are directly involved in the work by providing labour for the contractor”. Apart from offering labour, we also made meaningful suggestions to the contractor and he accepted our contributions to make the work result oriented”.

Malam Sani further added that with the release of water from the dam, the farmers are energized to return to their farms after several weeks of holiday and income loss due to the work. He therefore, praised KSADP, IsDB and LLF for their support.

Impressed by the enthusiasm with which the farmers around Watari dam embraced the renovation of the facility, the Managing Director of KNARDA, Dr. Junaid Yakubu Muhammad, announced a donation of farm inputs including fifty bags of fertilizer, 150 kg of leguminous crops seeds, 100 sprayers and other items to 100 selected farmers in the domain.

This gesture will motivate the farmers to strengthen their resolve in agriculture and importantly, to maintain support to the contractor handling the renovation of the dam, for speedy completion of the work.

It is noteworthy to mention that apart from renovation of the dam, KSADP intends to develop an additional 1,000 hectares of irrigation land in the area for irrigation farming. This is in addition to the existing 962 hectares that is presently under utilized. The development of the additional 1,000 ha will enable thousands of farmers in the area to engage in both wet and dry season farming activities which will enhance their income, standards of living and increased food production for the benefit of the people of Kano State.

Introduction

Like many other parts of Nigeria, farmers in Kano State have been very far from access to important extension service information particularly those into dry season crop production such as rice farmers. Smallholder farmers in Tokin of Warawa LGA, Kano state where not an exception. They lacked access to reliable Agricultural extension support and information; such as understanding better package of practice, input access, Market and other general information. Their crop yields were low because improved seeds were lacking. Village farmers were only exposed to unreliable suppliers of expensive and fake inputs dealers. The most topical problem was that the few reliable sources of extension information such as ADPs were located long distances

Farmer’s experience

Mallam Mukhtar Garba is42 years old farmer. He is a rice seed multiplication farmer from Tokin community of Warawa LGA of Kano State, he is blessed with 5 children from 2 wives, farming has been his business for close to25years. He is one of the 45,000 farmers networked, trained and supported with inputs to manage and showcased improved rice seed multiplication technology by KSADP – crop value chain development component under Sasakawa in year 2021 dry season intervention.

Mukhtar is second by the right in the picture                Mukhtar standing besides his fertilizer bags                          

Testimony and Impact

I benefited a lot from my partnership with KSADP Dry-season Program and can now look at agriculture as a business. Before I used to harvest a maximum of 50 bags (3.7 metric tons) of paddy rice from the same one hectare of land, but now with the right production technology and quality inputs I received from Sasakawa last dry season, I harvested 102 bags (7.7 metric tons) of Faro 44 rice fromone hectare of land. I gave out 5 bags of 75kg each to farmers in the community as Zakkat for them to apply the certified seed in their respective farms, 12 bags for my family consumption and sold out 85 bags to the seed company at N16,500 each totalling N1, 402,500 (One Million Four Hundred and Two Thousand Five Hundred Naira Only). with the proceeds of that bumper harvest, I now open a shop at my community selling fertilizer and chemicals while expanding my rice seed multiplication to 1.5 hectare this wet season. I also used some portion of the profit to pay bills of my children school fees.

Lessons learned and actions to be taken.

Farms that received proper agronomic attention like mine is always attractive to bad persons. Last dry season even with the yield I realized, thieves stole 1.5 rows from my farm. Now I intend to fence my farm and hire a guard at the point of harvest to stop thieves from breaking into it.

In Kano state, Northwest Nigeria, agricultural extension service remains a key factor for agricultural development and improvement of rural livelihoods. This is fundamental taking into account the fact that agriculture is the backbone of the state’s economy, with 70 percent of the state’s population engaged directly or indirectly in agricultural production.

Despite this scenario, many smallholder farmers in the State lack access to extension services – information on best practices, input access, market and skills, which are intended to help them to improve their living standards.

To address this and other challenges facing the agricultural sector, Kano state Agro-Pastoral Development Project, KSADP, financed by the Islamic Development Bank and the Lives and Livelihood Funds, signed an agreement with Sasakawa Africa Association, to impact 450, 000 small holder farmers in Kano.

A critical component of the KSADP/SAA intervention is the design and execution of value chain extension training for extension workers and famer facilitators in the state.

In 2021 under the dry season intervention 112, 500 farmers were targeted to benefit for the first year, across 20 local government areas, instead the number of beneficiaries shot to 114, 719, following due diligence, resilience and resourceful planning.

Mallam Mutari Garba, 42 year old rice seed multiplication farmer from Tokin community of Warawa LGA of Kano State, who has been his business for close to 25 years. He is one of the 45,000 farmers networked, trained and supported with inputs to manage and showcased improved rice seed multiplication technology by KSADP – crop value chain development component under Sasakawa in the 2021 dry season intervention, testifies.

Mutari posing with the input support he received

“Before, I used to harvest a maximum of 50 bags (3.7 metric tons) of paddy rice from the same one hectare of land, but now with the production technology and quality inputs I received during last dry season, I harvested 102 bags (7.7 metric tons) of Faro 44 rice from one hectare of land”.

“I gave out 5 bags of 75kg each to farmers in the community as Zakkat for them to use the certified seed in their respective farms, 12 bags for my family consumption and sold out 85 bags to the seed company at N16,500 each totalling N1, 402,500 (One Million Four Hundred and Two Thousand Five Hundred Naira Only)”.

“With the proceeds of that bumper harvest, I now thinking of starting a shop in my community for selling fertilizer and chemicals, while expanding my rice seed multiplication to about two hectares this wet season. I have adequate reason to appreciate the IsDB, LLF, KSADP and Sasakawa”.

Mutari in his rice demo plot

This position was corroborated by Isah Umar of Imawa, Kura local government area, another demo host farmer, who said they have been cultivating rice for decades in his community with archaic knowledge of farming, spending lot of money to buy inputs like fertilizers and hiring more labor, on the assumption that doing could help him achieve maximum yield.

“Since KSADP/SAA intervention came to his community our yield has improved. It is a miracle that you plant one stand of rice and you get more than forty stands, the line transplanting though looks tedious but it helps them to manage space and save wasted fertilizers that we have been using over the years before this intervention”.

Isah and showing samples of rice to officials at his demo plot

Before the intervention in 2021, Isah and other farmers in his community usually harvest 30 to 40 bags of paddy rice per Ha after spending much in fertilizer application and engaging many labourers, stressing that from the output of his farm, he expects to realize 60 to 100 bags of paddy rice per Ha with minimal application of inputs.

Basically, each farmer like Mutari and Isah were trained on site and seed selection, nursery establishment, planting spacing and density, transplanting, fertilizer application, weeding, pest and disease management), harvest and post-harvest handling, storage management, business skills and enterprise management, even as they received support of improved seeds and fertilizer.

But the bottom-line is that the beneficiaries are now fully knowledgeable and early adopters among them have already recorded increased yield from their production in the same land they previously cultivated with lower yields.

Ameen K. Yassar

Communication Specialist, KSADP

Like in many African societies, women in Kano state, Nigeria, contribute significantly to food production and processing, but men take more of the farm decisions and control the productive resources. Yet, increased participation of women is required to boost agricultural productivity and attain food security, besides alleviating poverty for a state whose population is conservatively put at about 18 million people. It is believed that about 70 percent of this population is below the poverty line and majority of them are women.

To this end, under KSADP/Sasakawa Africa Association Crop intervention programme, thousands of women and youth are supported to access technical expertise and input grants, to stimulate optimal involvement in agricultural production and processing thus, providing income and rural employment.

This is premised on the commitment of the Islamic Development Bank and the Lives and Livelihood Funds, the financiers of KSADP, to lift millions of people out of poverty and improve livelihoods generally, through job creation and income generation initiatives.

So far, about 114, 719 farmers, including a good number of women farmers have started celebrating their gains, according to Safiya Inuwa Danborno, 45, a mother of seven children from Gafan Women Group Cooperative Society, Bunkure local government area. She has the responsibility of meeting the domestic needs of the family since her husband supports an extended family comprising several nephews and grand children.

“Our association has 50 members and we have been farming as an organized group for 17 years. However, access to land and inputs has always been our bottleneck to agricultural production”.

Through the KSADP/Sasakawa project the group has enlisted them to be part of the Smallholder commercial farmers who will produce sorghum and maize in a contiguous 50-hectare land allocated to them by the Kano state Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources in the 2021 wet season production calendar.

Apart from the training they got, each of the beneficiaries received 500kg of improved sorghum seed, 50 bags of NPK and 50 bags of Urea fertilizer respectively.

Safiya Inuwa Danbarno with some members of her group in their farm

“We are happy beneficiaries of KSADP/Sasakawa input grant support. Ever since we ventured into farming, access to capital for us to procure inputs has been very difficult because we are weak. Our group applied and secured 50 hectares of land from Kano state government which we intend to produce sorghum and maize but we were constrained due to lack of capital”. 

“Glory be to Allah, when we heard of KSADP, the Islamic Bank financed project providing inputs support through Sasakawa, so we approached them. Their workers quickly came and confirmed the location of our farms and provided us with inputs grant equivalent to 30 percent of the required inputs for 50 hectares”.

“This unlocked opportunity for us to grab an off-taker who is funding the 70 percent balance of our production cost. You can see how big this farm is. We are happy to inform you, that this kind of contiguous production by women in Gafan area is unprecedented. Go round and ask people – we are a point of reference in Bunkure as a result of the KSADP grant”.

“The intervention has brought happiness to our lives. When we harvest the produce, we will take some percentage of the profit to solve family issues and re-invest the remaining to scale up production in the next cropping season”.

Gafan women farmers in their sorghum farm

Commenting on this development, the KSADP/SAA Project Coordinator, Abdurrashid Kofar Mata said: “We have commenced the training of women in best agronomic practices and basic farm technologies across several locations in part of the state. We also provided them with seeds and other inputs. We trained them on nutrition sensitive agriculture all with the funding received from KSADP, whose funds come from the Islamic Development Bank and the LLF”.

He stated that 45 women groups in the state, comprising not more 25 women each, amounting to 1,125 beneficiaries have been trained on improved rice parboiling techniques and empowered them with improved parboiling kits. Karefa Women Rice Processors in Tudun Wada local government area is among the quick adapters to the training.

40 year old, Ummi Sh’aibu a housewife with eight children is a member of Karefa Women Rice Processors said hitherto, they have been into processing for over 20 years, with little to show for it. They were selected for the agricultural training based on criteria using a “farmers’ assessment checklist’’ as a tool to help identify women groups that actually need the intervention.

“We are used to processing using traditional pot but it doesn’t make our work easy. Secondly, our milled rice is always looking dark and having stones in it. So it is merely patronized. But with this training we received few months ago and the new sorting and parboiling equipment supplied, it really helped us to improve on our business. We are so amazed. We thought any rice that is processed locally cannot be eye friendly and pot friendly too”.

“We were trained on improved parboiling, milling and how to package the milled rice. Let me tell you that in the past 5 weeks, I have been able to process 30 bags of paddy and I have made a profit of N75, 000 from sales of my packaged milled rice, which I hardly gain before in 3 months because the rice is not value added”.  

“By all means, we are richer now and I am planning to rent a shop to display my goods. We have gotten new experience and this has really increased my confidence in this business. I don’t know how to thank the IsDB for the KSADP/SAA project, which has come to our locality with a life changing opportunit
y”.

Ummi Shu’aibu with her friends displaying their association’s packaged rice

Ameen K. Yassar

Communication Specialist, KSADP

Indeed in Nigeria, like in most countries across the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in various critical health and economic challenges which have impacted on the lives of the people.

The impact of the current pandemic on farmers’ in Nigeria especially Kano state, the country’s foremast agricultural and commercial hub cannot be overemphasized. Definitely, farmers’ means of livelihood was threatened by the pandemic thereby worsening food and nutrition security, raising unemployment and aggravating poverty.

The lockdown enforced by the State and Federal government’s that affected all segments of the society hindered agricultural activities such as farming and livestock development, since there was no fodder for the animals, thus, making faming households more vulnerable.

Specifically, farmers in Kano could not generate income, suffered production losses and hardly got access to agro inputs and labour. And since there was travel ban, they could not get access to markets in cities and towns, to sell farm produce, livestock and products like milk and butter.

For their families, the situation was also miserable as the pandemic resulted in shortage of food, reduction in food diversity and reliance on support from donor organizations. Incidence of malnutrition worsened especially among the children.

The sad experience provides important lessons for strengthening the resilience of the agro-pastoral system in the State, and the livelihoods of households that depend on it.

Given the foregoing scenario, there is the imperative to find ways to step up the resilience of the farmers for faster economic recovery, by improving income, mitigation poverty, creating more jobs as well as effectively tackling food and nutrition security concerns.

In this regard, The Kano State Agro-Pastoral Development Project, financed by the Islamic Development Bank and the Lives and Livelihood Funds, initiated and completed repairs of the Watari dam and Irrigation Scheme, which is XXXXX and has potential to provide XXXX jobs.

The dam and its irrigation infrastructure, constructed over 40 years ago had not undergone any major repairs for more than twenty years.

Consequently, parts of the downstream infrastructure especially the canals, embankment and reservoirs have become silted and, in most cases, broken down.

Non repair the infrastructure caused more than 2, 314 farmers to lose their means of livelihoods, as only about 52 percent can cultivate their crops twice a year, while the rest of the farmers can only cultivate their crops during the wet season as a result.

Again, out of the existing 962 hectares of farmland covered by the irrigation scheme, about 45 percent of the land is not in use due to the dilapidation of the irrigation infrastructure, leading to huge economic loss for thousands of farmers. The situation was worsened by COVD 19.

Apart from renovating the dam, KSADP has concluded arrangement to develop an additional 1,000 hectares of irrigation land in the area for irrigation farming. This development will enable XXXXX farmers in the area to engage in both wet and dry season farming activities which will enhance their income, standards of living and increased food production.

At the moment, XXXXX from Dawakin Tofa, Bagwai and Bichi local government areas are benefitting from the renovated project, planting Rice, Tomato, Onions, Maize, Wheat, Cucumber, Cowpea, Groundnut, Cabbage and Watermelon.

The cost of hiring of renting a farm in the irrigation scheme has increased from N170, 000 per ha to N280, 000 per ha now. The cost of paddy before COVID has increased from N13, 000 to N18, 000 now, while middlemen who collect N700 only as commission, per bag of paddy now collect N1500 for the same service.

Production of rice also increased from 60 bags per ha to nearly 110 bags of paddy after the repairs. Thanks to the KSADP-SAA technical cooperation aimed at enhancing farmers’ capacity to produce more. More rice millers, agro products dealers, cloths and phone repairers have sprang up in the area owing to increased production.

The dam repairs have also provided ample opportunity for jobs for youths and women in crop production, processing and marketing. Many of them no longer travel to Kano city for menial jobs while some have gotten married and purchased water pumping machines, motorcycles, standing fans, television sets and generators, as indicators of their new status in the society. 

Besides, under the KSADP-SAA crop value chain intervention,   450, 000 small holder farmers in Kano will benefit from access to extension services – information on best practices, input access, market access and skills/ technology development, which are intended to help them to improve their productivity and living standards. More 112, 000  farmers, formed into groups in 20 local government areas of the state, have started to benefit and six new mini rice mills have been established and are being managed by the farmers.

The KSADP has also signed an MOU with Kano State Agricultural and Rural Development Authority, to impact 100, 000 farmers across the legumes value chain.

This includes a special training component for women in agriculture, to teach beneficiaries the significance of adequate and quality nutrition on pregnancy outcomes and child development, highlight the benefit of proper nutrition and teach women how to prepare nutritious foods from locally harvested agricultural products.

To address challenges Livestock issues against the backdrop of COVID 19 Challenges, KSADP initiated a livestock vaccination exercise in 2021 where 701, 042 cattle and 663, 570 sheep and goats were vaccinated. The endeavor was conducted by 520 inoculators and a number of volunteers, under the supervision of 25 Veterinary doctors.

This resulted in tremendous improvement in the livestock health leading to improved milk and beef production in the state. This encouraged the project to organize another vaccination in 2022, to guarantee ample supply of milk and meat, which provide a vital source of nutrition for the populace, especially vulnerable groups such as children and sick people.

Given the foregoing outcomes, it is clear that improving the resilience of agricultural production is one way of ensuring that future crises have a more limited impact on the lives and livelihoods of the people of Kano.

AMEEN K. YASSAR

COMMUNICATION SPECIALIST, KSADP