By Ahmed Rufa’i, Dutse
Fear has gripped thousands of Wheat farmers in Jigawa state as a result of the current unconducive weather for the wheat plants in the state.
Reports from the state indicated that the harmattan weather from November expected to end in early March of every year is needed by the wheat plantation however that is lacking in this season.
Speaking to our correspondent in the State, some farmers expressed apprehension over the situation of shortlived harmattan (cool weather) for weeks now, the type of atmosphere the plants needed for bumper harvest.
A farmer who gave his name as Malam Umar Jafaru Kwadage said “frankly speaking I’m scared by the situation. Wheat plants need serious low temperature weather and dust for minimum of 10 weeks. But this year is different”.
Malam Kwadage maintained that “if the harmattan weather didn’t show to bring about the cold weather and dust there is every possibility of poor harvest this year”.
Also speaking another farmer Malam Uba Adamu of Warwaden Kudu decried the situation he found himself, saying “our problem is that, we collected some packages in form of support from the state and Federal Governments under the 2023 National Wheat Production Programme.
“Most of us received the packages and now we are contending with the weather problems”.
In that regards, the JIgawa government in partnership with Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) just launched the ‘train the trainers’ of 2,000 agricultural extension workers and leaders of Wheat farmers groups under the 2023/2024 national Wheat farming projects on the project management training in the state.
While flagging up the training in Dutse, the state capital, the managing director Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL), Alhaji Abbas Umar Masanawa, indicated that “the Jigawa State government is collaborating with NIRSAL to bring expertise and experience to bear in Nigeria’s pursuit of a bumper wheat harvest this year”.
The managing director who was represented by Mr Suleiman Ibrahim explained that “A total of 355 extension agents and 706 farmer cluster leaders from Kiyawa, Birnin Kudu, Ringim, Hadejia, and Kazaure took part in the first phase of the training sessions, which were held in four of the five emirates in the State”.
According to him “The participants are expected to transmit the knowledge gained along with the training materials received to the members of their respective clusters of over 800 wheat farmer groups with 50 members each making a total of 40,000 wheat farmers registered under the state/national 2023 wheat production project”.
He explained further that in the modules for the training programme there is deep dive into possible protocol breaches and early warning systems put in place to address the early warning systems for detecting and arresting any issues capable of derailing the project before they blossom.
“The participants were also taught effective produce aggregation as a critical success factor”, he emphasis.
The managing director maintained that the country is spending six million US Dollars importing wheat annually, “it is really huge amount of money”.
“NIRSAL is an initiative of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) established to innovatively and independently de-risk agriculture and agribusiness financing in Nigeria, with a view to stimulating the flow of finance and investment into the Agricultural Value Chain from multiple sources.
Logistics for the Jigawa training exercise is provided by one of the five pillars of NIRSAL Technical Assistance, under which value chain fixing initiatives are researched, developed, and promoted.
On his part the JIgawa State Commissioner of Agriculture, Muttaka Namadi, says he is keeping tabs on all collaborators, managing relationships, and supervising performance.
The Commissioner represented by the Birninkudu zonal extension officer, Malam Hamisu B. Muhammed commended NIRSAL for its commitment to the Jigawa Wheat project, counting on the support to lead to the success of the project. Similar sentiment was expressed by the participants of the capacity development program who attested that the program gave them new insights for their work.