The Federal Government (FG) has moved to tackle problems in agriculture such as post-harvest loss and others, by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (Mou) with Japanese Group, Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA).
This was disclosed by the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Sabo Nanono in a statement signed by the Ministry’s Director of Information, Theodore Ogaziechi, in Abuja.
Details of the collaboration: According to Daily Trust, the minister said that the collaboration with Sasakawa would focus on transfer of appropriately tested and acceptable knowledgeable know-how and technological package on selected agricultural commodity value chain.
He made known that the Federal Government’s support for Sasaakwa initiatives was in line with President Muhammad Buhari’s Next Level Agenda of achieving food security and economic growth in Nigeria.
Why this matters: The collaboration would benefit commercially oriented smallholder farmers, particularly women and youths while ultimately improving the country’s agricultural productivity and production, food security and nutrition, among others.
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More details: The MoU is aimed at deepening, expanding, consolidating and sustaining the overall Nigerian economic objective as enshrined in the Agricultural Promotion Policy (APP). According to reports, the collaboration implementation strategy was reviewed to achieve better results under six thematic areas.
The areas include Post-Harvest and Agro Processing (PHAP); Crop Productivity Enhancement (CPE); Monitoring Evaluation Learning and Sharing (MELS); Sasakawa Fund for Extension Education (SAFE); and Management.
Meanwhile, NIPPON Foundation, a private philanthropic Organisation based in Japan and major financing institution backing Sasakawa, is also interested in empowering smallholder farmers and tackling the problems in agriculture.
This was stated by the Executive Director, NIPPON Foundation, Ichiro Kabasawa, who said that the organisation would lead in influencing inclusive transformation of Agriculture in Africa.
What you should know: The Sasakawa Group had disclosed in one of Nairametrics publications that not less than 5,500 farmers in Cross River State had been trained since 2015 through the initiatives led by the group.
