The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) is to support about 100,000 farming households in the 2019 cropping season in Borno State.The households will also benefit from essential seeds and inputs for greater self-sufficiency and independence from food assistance in 2020.
The FAO Country Representative, Mr Suffyan Koroma, disclosed this on Wednesday while inaugurating the 2019 rainy season programme at Farm Centre, Maiduguri. He disclosed that about 400,000 agricultural kits had been distributed to three million farmers in insurgency affected states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe so far.
The distribution, according to him, had significantly improved the livelihoods of people with adopted coping strategies.“With the strong collaboration and guidance from the respective state ministries, the agency annually provides individuals and their families with crop seeds, including maize, sorghum, millet, and cowpea,” he said.He said courses of training were also provided on how to use the improved inputs to restore community’s livelihoods in the region.
“As we await the results of the ongoing Cadre Harmonise exercise, which ascertains the number of people requiring humanitarian support, I would like to remind all in attendance that there were great strides of actors working in the northeast to reduce the number of food insecure people,” he said.
The total number of people in need of food assistance fell from 2.6 to 1.7 million in the last two years, he said, and the improvement was a direct result of the coordinated responses led by the state and federal governments.
SOURCE: GUARDIAN
