The State Project Coordinator, Kano State Agro-Pastoral Development Project, KSADP, Ibrahim Garba Muhammad, has tasked Sasakawa Africa Association, to focus more on mechanization, under the KSADP-SAA grains value chain intervention.
He said the essence is to improve the production efficiency of small holder farmers, enhance food security and generally promote sustainability of the agricultural system.
The Project Coordinator further underscored the need for SAA to encourage private and financial sector involvement in the intervention, to enable the farmers access credit facilities and other forms of support.
“We want a situation whereby our farmers will be doing farming as a business and not just to feed themselves. This cannot be achieved without the support of financial institutions”, he said.
He made the call while receiving the Director for Strategic Partnership, SAA, Dr. Mel Olouch, who visited him at the KSADP office in Kano.
He was particularly happy that the partnership between KSADP and SAA, was delivering positive outcomes in many areas such as capacity building of extension agents and regenerative agriculture, hoping the trend will be maintained.
“Very soon, we will have our mid-term review for the project and we hope that during that time, we be able to look at areas where we need to make improvements so that the goal of this project can be achieved”, he maintained.
In his remarks, Dr. Mel Olouch noted that the KSADP has been internationally acknowledged as an impactful project, pointing out the need for Kano state government to ride on the achievements recorded by the project, to access more development support from the Islamic Development Bank and other donors.
“KSADP will fold up in the next two years so we need to start thinking two years in advance. There is a lot of money set aside by international donors to support agricultural development in Africa, and the government can leverage the goodwill created by KSADP, to attract more funds to the state
He proposed a strategic meeting between his organization and KSADP, to see which areas need to be prioritized, to scale up the achievement recorded under the technical cooperation.
