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By Umar Egbunu Muhammed, Lafia
In a bid to tackle food security, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), in collaboration with Diamond Development Initiatives (DDI), have distributed farm inputs to over 2,000 farmers in Nasarawa state.
The GAIN senior programme manager, supply chains for commercialization, Mr, Godwin Ehiabhi, revealed this during the inauguration of the farm inputs in Lafia, the state capital.
He explained that the rationale behind the gestures was to enable them establish the Home Garden Initiative in the state, nothing that this would go a long way in fighting the shortage of nutrition foods across the 13 local government areas of the state.
According to him, GAIN who are the financiers of the project and DDI who are the implementing partners, stated that the initiative was focus on training households in the establishment and maintenance of home gardens, improved access to quality planting materials promotion and consumption of vegetables for the home gardens.
His words, “This initiative, launched as a crucial part of the Workforce Nutrition Component within the Strengthening Nutrition in Priority Staples Project (SNiPS), is designed to provide support to farming households, farmers, farm workers and processors in the rice and maize value chains.
“This will improve knowledge and technologies on good agronomic practices for home gardens, improve nutrition education of households on the need to consume nutritious foods grown in their home garden.”
He, however, maintained that the farm inputs include: organic liquid fertiliser, tomatoes seeds, amaranthus, orange-fleshed, sweet potatoes (OFSP), vines, and branded watering cans to a total of over 2,000 households across the four targeted local government areas Awe, Doma, Kokona and Lafia.
Earlier, the Executive Director of DDI, Mr. Adamu Garba represented by the Programme Coordinator of the DDI, Mr. Francis Dire, disclosed that DDI partnership with GAIN in three states of the federation to include Nasarawa, Benue and Kaduna States with the aim of improving the nutrition of Value Chain Actors in Maize and Rice value chains.
According to the Agronomist of the programme in Nasarawa State- Professor Ibrahim Muhammad Haruna stressed the need for home garden establishment in the state, adding that the function of the Extension Agents mainly was to execute the programme effectively to address the persistence nutritious challenges among vulnerable and less privilege persons in the society and ensure food security.
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