Canadian funded project boosts food security

Maiduguri, Nigeria-- From the air, it is an unending sea of white sand with dark parches here and there. ''Those parches are trees planted by the people to check desertification and to provide some shades for them and their flocks. Everywhere is desert,'' explains Binta Mohammed, a fellow passenger on a flight from Abuja to Maiduguri, capital of Borno State, northern Nigeria.

Borno State lies across three ecological zones, the northern Guinea savanna, Southern Guinea Savanna and the Sudan Savanna. As a result of erratic rainfall, marginal soil fertility, non-conducive policy environment of the region and the effect of striga parasite which causes crops to wither, women and men in rural areas of the state who depend mainly on agriculture had faced increasing food insecurity.

To ameliorate the situation, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) based in Ibadan, capital of Oyo State southwestern Nigeria in 2002 introduced a pilot project using modern agricultural technologies at Mirga, a farming community some 200 kilometers from Maiduguri.

The success of the pilot project has led to a new project ''Promoting Sustainable Agriculture in Borno State (PROSAB)'' which began in 2004 in 30 communities in four local governments in southern Borno. The five-year agricultural project is funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to the tune of US$2.4 million.

According to Dr. Jan Helsen, Project Manager of PROSAB: ''The goal of the PROSAB project is to contribute to improved food security and reduce environmental degradation, to improve sustainable agriculture through transferring improved technologies and management practices, improve market access, develop a more enabling policy environment and enhance capacity''.

The IITA is implementing the PROSAB project with local partners, Borno State Agricultural Development Programme, University of Maiduguri, Community Research for Empowerment and Development , a local non governmental organisation and some local government areas.

''PROSAB has four major project outcomes part of which is to improve agricultural productivity through introducing and testing technologies developed by IITA over the years in a similar ecological conditions on farms part of which is managed by researchers themselves and promoting sustainable agriculture through a policy that teaches farmers and the local communities best methods of production and processing such that when the project winds up, it would be sustained by the rural farmers themselves,'' Helsen explained.

In order to reduce the impact of drought and striga parasite which are two major problems facing agriculture in the state, the IITA officials are also teaching farmers crop rotation system and introducing the cultivation of soyabeans for sale and local consumption as food supplements as well as giving nutrient to degraded soil.

At present, PROSAB has more than 600 lead farmers that are directly dealing with the project, who are transferring the agricultural technology to secondary farmers. Apart from this, there are more than 260 registered seed producers, both men and women, scattered around all the project areas in four local governments of the state.

As a result of the poverty status of the peasant farmers, PROSAB at the initial stage embarked on a micro-credit scheme under which agricultural input such as fertilizer and seed are distributed to indigenous farmers as loan to be repaid with a measure of their farm produce at harvest.

''To ensure that farmers have access to the improved seeds that we developed in IITA, we set up community-based seed multiplication scheme in each of the communities, where we train registered farmers on production of these seeds for sale to other farmers and communities,'' says Lucky Omoigui, an IITA Research Associate.

Omogui, who stood in for Dr. Alpha Kamara, PROSAB 's project Agronomist when this reporter undertook a tour of the project sites in Biu local government, explained that some of the farmers could not afford fertilizer and needed help for them to take off, hence the unique but effective micro-credit scheme.

''What we did at the initial stage was that each of the farmers was given input, fertilizer, which is a major input for maize. At the end of the season (harvest) we ask them to give us seed equivalent of the fertiliser input that we have given to them. We cost the input and buy the seed, so to say but they don't collect money in return, they give us seed in kind,'' he said. This year (2005), more than 2,000 farmers from different communities received one kilogram of maize seed and one kilogram of soyabean free.

The unique but successful micro-credit scheme has raised the production of farmers and affected positively their standards of living. For instance, on half an hectare of land, a farmer is now able to produce up to 20 bags of maize (a bag is 100 kilograms) which he or she sells and is able to generate enough money within a year to buy input without depending on PROSAB credit.

Peasant farmers, men, women and the youths in all the communities visited during the tour, are appreciative of the project and the positive impact it has had on their lives within the two years of its introduction.

In Marama village, Madam Ndiherwa Ibrahim a 55-year-old female farmer and mother of seven, who benefited from the fertilizer loan scheme and the free supply of improved seed in 2004, is now a PROSAB seed producer and lead farmer. A lead farmer owns a PROSAB demonstration farm where he or she teaches other farmers the technique of planting, applying fertilizer and crop rotation. She, like other farmers now harvests higher yields from their small farms. She has half an hectare of farm where she now practices crop rotation.

''Before the coming of PROSAB, I was harvesting just eight to ten bags of maize, but last year I harvested 18 and a half bags and this year, I have harvested 26 bags,'' Ibrahim who is uneducated but wants all her children to be educated, said through an interpreter.

Through Ibrahim, many farmers in Marama village have access to improved seed and training.

''The other farmers in my community have benefited especially on improved seed and new technology of crop rotation and fertilizer application. I teach them that when they rotate maize and soybeans on the land, the soybeans give the soil nutrient and also kills striga parasite. We were taught this by the PROSAB people, '' she said.

Ibrahim can now help her husband with the school fees of their younger children, two of who are in higher institutions of learning in Maiduguri the state capital, some 200 kilometers from her village.

''PROSAB has really affected my life. They showed me how to make money and improve my livelihood and I am teaching other farmers too. If PROSAB should leave today, we can sustain the project but I do not want them to leave yet. They are like father and mother to us,'' she said.

Mr. Joshua Mshellia, a seed producer in Biu town, described the PROSAB credit scheme as very good because a lot of poor farmers now have easy access to fertilizer and have come to agree to the method of farming being taught by the agronomists through farm leaders such as the planting of soybeans not only for the income it is generating but to add nutrient to the soil and reduce the striga infestation which have been a major problem in the sandy region.

Mshellia, a retired head teacher, who only collected free seed about two years ago and now harvests three times what he used to harvest before the coming of PROSAB, wants the project extended to other sandy areas of the country where crops have failed due to the effect of striga parasite.

''If this method is extended to other sandy areas, it will help to increase food production not just in northern Nigeria but the whole country,'' he said.

At Mirga where the pilot project startedin 2002, Alhaji Maisanda Mohammed, District Head of the village also agrees the project has lifted his subjects from poverty to riches.

''Our people are predominantly farmers, but unfortunately they were just farming without knowing the technique of farming. However, through the efforts of PROSAB, our people are wealthier than before because of bumper harvest this year,'' Mohamed said in an interview in his palace.

''We have learnt a lot from PROSAB. My people were very lazy before PROSAB came. I am proud to say today that everybody now knows what he or she is doing as far as farming is concerned''.

Mrs. Nancy Mohammed Wakawa, a school teacher in Mirga, apart from being a successful farmer as PROSAB lead farmer also teaches other women how to process soybeans into various food products thereby helping to increase protein intake of people in the community.

''The coming of PROSAB has helped us a lot because they have taught us how to defeat poverty, hunger and disease, and now we are trying to defeat it. What I used to have, I am getting twice of it now because of the use of improved variety and technology which has reduced striga on our farms,'' she said.