Post-harvest losses: Organisation launches initiative to support Gombe smallholder farmers
ThriveAgric, in partnership with Mercy Corps, has unveiled its Multipurpose Grain Facility project in Nasarawo Industrial Layout in Gombe State.
The project, which is under the Feed the Future Nigeria Rural Resilience Activity (RRA) initiative is intended to enhance the local economy, empower smallholder farmers and improve the agricultural value chain.
It is also expected to contribute to Nigeria’s self-sufficiency and economic diversification goals.
As part of the project, a multipurpose rice cleaning and milling facility was established at the layout.
Inaugurating the facility on Wednesday, the Commissioner for Agriculture and Animal Husbandry and Cooperatives, Mr Barnabas Malle, said that the facility would help to reduce post-harvest losses.
Malle said that such losses often caused huge financial losses to smallholder farmers.
He said that the project would complement the State Government’s commitment toward strengthening agriculture and enhancing the lives of smallholder farmers.
He said that rice production plays a crucial role in food security and local livelihoods.
“Our farmers have often faced serious challenges, from post- harvest losses to limited access to modern facilities.
“This new facility, made possible through the collaborative efforts of ThriveAgric and Mercy Corps under the RRA, is a direct response to these challenges.
“It will enhance our ability to process rice efficiently, improve the quality of our yields, and minimise losses that impact both income and food availability.
“This is a catalyst for economic growth as this facility is set to create value addition to the commodity,” he said.
He commended ThriveAgric and Mercy Corps for their support, adding that it would reduce poverty and ensure farmers get good returns on their investment.
The Chief Executive Officer of ThriveAgric, Mr Uka Eje, said the initiative was one of the many partnerships aimed at supporting smallholder farmers through value addition.
Eje said that value addition remains a necessary tool to helping farmers to earn more from their labour.
“For us, we want to make sure that the farmers are rightly incentivised to go back to farming in order to earn more.
“Agriculture is beyond a cultural activity, it is largely commerce and through this work and initiative, we want to ensure that it is profitable commerce for the smallholder farmers,” he said.
He said that the rice processing facility would impact 20,000 farmers directly and indirectly.
Also, the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Manager of Mercy Corps, Mr Shedrack Gideon, said that the initiative was business model to help drive investment into the state.
Gideon further said that the move would improve smallholder farmers’ incomes, hence he urged them to embrace the initiative.
A rice farmer from Billiri, Mrs Blessing Stephen, said the initiative would greatly assist smallholder farmers, reduce wastage during rice processing, improve rice quality and farmers’ incomes.
Stephen said: “I am happy that we now have this facility where we can clean and process our rice to look like foreign one, this will help us to sell them quickly with more profits.
“It usually took me months to process 100 bags of paddy rice manually.
“And because of the stress, I ended up selling them at give away prices, but now within days I can process all my paddies.”
