‘50 million farmers benefitted from our intervention’

The Managing Director of the SASAKAWA Global 2000, Dr. Juliana Rwelamira, said yesterday that the organisation had reached out to over 50 million smallholder-farmers in Nigeria and other parts of Africa in the 30 years of its existence.

Speaking at the Ahmadu Bello University’s National Agricultural Extension Research and Liaison Services (NAERLS), Dr. Rwelamira said the group hopes to increase the number of farmers benefitting from its programmes from this year to 2021.

She added; “the essence of our strategic plan is to eradicate poverty by improving the yield of smallholder-farmers across the benefitting states in Nigeria. This informed the decision of this 30-year anniversary that was themed ‘Contributing to Social Security and Jobs Through Agriculture: 30 years of SASAKAWA in Africa and 25 years in Nigeria’.

In his address, the Minister of Agriculture, Audu Ogbe, urged wealthy Nigerians to imitate those that founded SG2000 with the aim of transforming the lives of the poor.

Represented by Dr. Karima Babangida, Director, Youth and Gender in the ministry, Ogbe said those that founded SASAKAWA in 1984, did so to assist millions of people that were affected by famine in Africa that year.

Nigeria’s SASAKAWA Country Director, Professor Sani Miko, said the group had been able to turn around the fortunes of agriculture in Nigeria.

“When we started, yield of maize was about 1.2 to 5 tonnes per hectare, but we have been able to turn this around with farmers now getting higher yields in not only maize but in other commodities like rice, cassava, soya beans among others,” Professor Miko said.