Farmers, Others To Benefit From Federal Govt, World Bank COVID-19 Recovery Programme

Vulnerable households and poor farmers in Bauchi State are to benefit a $20 million federal government and World Bank COVID-19 action recovery economic stimulus support programme to alleviate the hardship caused by the pandemic.

The state commissioner for agriculture, Barrister Jidauna Tula Bami, stated this at a capacity building workshop for Fadama cares facilitators and desk officers held in Bauchi yesterday.

He said the workshop was aimed at boosting agricultural production in the state and the provision of grants by the World Bank to alleviate the hardship caused as a result of COVID-19 pandemic.

He said the participants would be trained on how to prepare community action recovery plans (CARPs) across the 20 LGAs targeting rural farmers and the most vulnerable in the society, adding that the agricultural inputs and other productive assets would be provided to this category of people as grant by the state government to support them regain their means of livelihood lost as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to him, the programme also intends to upgrade the existing wet markets across the 20 LGAs through the provision of VIP latrines, solar boreholes and many other social amenities.

He  urged facilitators and desk officers of Fadama to select vulnerable households and the poorest farmers who are to benefit from the program.

He said, “You will agree with me that the outbreak of coronavirus has devastated the world economy and the agricultural sector in particular, hence the idea of the programme came to being. We sincerely thank the World Bank and the federal government for coming up with this programme aimed at supporting the vulnerable households and the poorest to regain their means of livelihood.”

Barrister Jidauna, also said the Bauchi State government had trained 1,000 youths on good agricultural practices at the Integrated Farm Centre, Abuja, while another set of 323 youths were trained as contract sprayers, adding that the state had also conducted the annual livestock vaccination and anti-rabies vaccination in the year 2021.