The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has trained extension workers on “Smallholder Horticulture Empowerment Project’’ (SHEP), to enhance family livelihoods.
Mr Ajaefobi Innocent, the Director, Federal Capital Territory- Agricultural Development Project (FCT-ADP), spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) at Gwagwalada on Thursday.
Innocent stated that the aim of the training was to improve farmers’ skills and income.
He explained that the programme was in line with the commitment of the FCT to tackle unemployment in the area.
Innocent, who spoke on the sideline of the ongoing three-day training programme for Batch Two of the FCT-ADP extension agents, was represented by Mr Ekele Ude, Head of Extension Services/SHEP.
According to him, the SHEP is an approach which realizes “Market-Oriented Agriculture” and converts farmers’ mind from “grow and sell” to “grow to sell”.
Innocent said that the ADP was partnering with Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to address the problem of horticultural crops like Ammalatus, pepper, tomatoes, ugwu and okro among others.
“They are highly perishable; the moment you harvest them between one or two hours, deterioration will begin to set in and they will not look fresh any longer.
“So, the Japanese have developed a model technology called Smallholder Horticulture Empowerment Project to address this problem using extension workers and women in agriculture as targets,’’ he said.
Innocent said that ADP’s partnership with JICA had been on since 2015.
He said that the SHEP’s step-down training for the agents would be on outline of the project, sensitisation of farmers, baseline survey as well as gender and family budget.
Others include market survey, crop selection, business plan, nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene, monitoring and evaluation.
The director explained that FCT-ADP would be training 18 extension workers across the six area councils in the FCT.
He added that the project planned to expand SHEP activities to other farmers in Nasarawa and build capacity of extension agents in Agricultural Development Programme in 18 other states to become SHEP trainers.
Speaking on women participation in agriculture, Mrs Deborah Oyekan, Coordinator, Women in Agriculture, FCT-ADP, said that women had essential roles to play especially in the area of nutrition.
“Their contribution matters even in the production of horticultural crops in the family.
“We are going to teach them different classes of food, we are going to teach them the kind of foods that will build their immune system.
“And with the training they will be able to improve on their dietary as well as general health of the family,’’ Oyekan said.
Also speaking, one of the trainees, Ms. Patience Abimiku from Kwali Area Council said that she would extend the training to her farmers’ group so as to improve their farming skills.
Another participant in the training, Mr Gwakzing Solomon of Abaji Area Council said that he had gain a lot from the programme and would in turn train grassroot farmers back home.
“I will educate them on the need to embrace horticultural farming and not limiting themselves to rain fed farming alone,’’ Solomon said. (NAN)
