Mrs. Fadimatu Abubakar is a small-scale rural farmer from Yola South local Government area of Adamawa state. Small-scale farmers produce over 80% of the food that feeds our population and women constitute over 60% of the small-scale farming workforce, so there is a need to support them, that’s why in implementing its agriculture programs, CISCOPE gives women a considerable advantage.
Mrs. Fadimatu is among the over 7,000 beneficiaries who got vegetable seeds and fertilizer from FAO under its dry season farming intervention for northeast Nigeria that began in November 2017. Each beneficiary got six different kinds of seeds and a bag of fertilizer. The seeds include onions, sorrel, lettuce, pepper, tomatoes, okra, cabbage, amaranthus, and carrot amongst others.
Mrs. Fadimatu is known among her peers as a very hardworking and industrious farmer. She farms both for subsistence and for commercial purposes. She revealed that this intervention has been of immense help to her and her family. She thanked FAO and her implementing partner CISCOPE, for the gesture, confessing that she was overwhelmed to have gotten this support without having to pay for the items and that the inputs came right on time in accordance with the farming calendar. She cultivates a large area of land within the LGA. She also attested to the quality of seeds that were distributed, saying the seeds were doing very well, at the point the monitoring team visited her farm, she had already harvested some of her vegetables and fresh stems were still shooting out.
Given that this intervention is for the dry season, water pumps were also given to the farmers. The farmers were organized into groups of five, taking into consideration conditions that included the proximity of members’ farms for easy access to the pumps.
This intervention, has no doubt, like was done in the 2017 rainy season, brought happiness to families like that of Fadimatu, also touched the lives of thousands of rural farmers, (which is its target) lifted several households from poverty, provided and reinforced means of livelihood for many and help check the looming danger of food insecurity in north-east Nigeria. The intervention has been planned to span three years. Thanks to FAO.
