GAIN, DDI, empower 2,000 farmers with farming inputs in Nasarawa

In a bid to tackle food security, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), in collaboration with Diamond Development Initiatives (DDI), has distributed farm inputs to over 2,000 farmers in Nasarawa State. The GAIN senior programme manager, supply chains for commercialisation, Mr Godwin Ehiabhi, revealed this during the inauguration of the farm inputs in Lafia, the state capital.

He explained that the rationale behind the gesture was to enable them establish the Home Garden Initiative in the state, nothing that this would go a long way in fighting the shortage of nutritious foods across the 13 local government areas of the state.

According to him, GAIN—the financiers of the project and DDI who are the implementing partners, stated that the initiative was focus on training households in the establishment and maintenance of home gardens, improved access to quality planting materials, promotion and consumption of vegetables for the home gardens.

His words, “This initiative, launched as a crucial part of the Workforce Nutrition Component within the Strengthening Nutrition in Priority Staples Project (SNiPS), is designed to provide support to farming households, farmers, farm workers and processors in the rice and maize value chains.

“This will improve knowledge and technologies on good agronomic practices for home gardens, improve nutrition education of households on the need to consume nutritious foods grown in their home garden.”

He, however, maintained that the farm inputs include: organic liquid fertiliser, tomato seeds, amaranthus, orange-fleshed, sweet potatoes (OFSP), vines, and branded watering cans to a total of over 2,000 households across the four targeted local government areas of Awe, Doma, Kokona and Lafia.