Magnus
Eze, Abuja
— 21st
November 2017
The British
American Tobacco Nigeria Foundation (BATNF) said it has spent N1billion in
community development in the last 15 years.
Executive
Director, BATNF, Abimbola Okoya, in her opening remarks at the 2017 Dialogue
session on smallholder farmers and sustainable agriculture in Nigeria, held in
Abuja, on Tuesday, disclosed that the Foundation had, since the maiden dialogue
in 2015, increased support to smallholder farmers by 200 per cent;
improving their agricultural practices through capacity building, giving them
access to finance through input contribution and linkage to markets.
According to
Okoya, BATNF has in its 15 years of existence implemented over 150 community
projects in the 36 States of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory
as well as trained 18,000 farmers.
Also
speaking, Chairman, Board of Directors, Chief Kola Jamodu disclosed
that the Foundation earmarked N200million to empower smallholder farmers across
the country this year. He said the Foundation was determined to work with the
Federal Government, other partners and stakeholders to move the nation’s
agriculture from subsistence to commercial level.
Represented by a
member of the board, Ageni Yusuf, the BoT Chairman said they do this through
provision of inputs, machinery and capacity to the farmers. “Depending on the
crop, some of them get one tonne per hectare, but we have been supporting them
with high-yielding grains. Now they have increased their yield to more than 2.5
to 3 tonnes per hectare. Not only that, we are supporting them with the right
quality fertilizer; we’re helping them with clearing the land. Many of them
clear and till the land manually; you can see the subsistence, but we’re
helping them, providing tractors.
“This year alone,
we have developed about 16 of what we call model enterprise farms in different
parts of the country. And that is why we have brought these smallholder
farmers; each having at least one hectare of land, where we’ll show them model
practical way of farming involving the improved seeds, fertilizer, clearing the
land; and the project for this year is almost N200million,” he stated.
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