FAO assists 149 730 households in northeast Nigeria grow 6-months’ worth of food at 2018 rainy season
Maiduguri, Nigeria - Long-awaited seasonal rains are making their way across northeastern Nigeria where millions of farmers eagerly anticipate the chance to break ground. After a prolonged period of Boko Haram-related conflict, markets are reopening and a significant number of farmers have returned to the homelands to resume cultivation. In the 2018 rainy season, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and its partners have targeted about 149 730 farming households for crucial distributions of seed and fertilizer in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states. In total, FAO estimates that more than one million people in these states will have enough food to last between six and eight months with the inputs provided, given normal seasonal conditions. The rainy season, occurring once a year, typically stretches from May to September and is the main planting season for smallholder farmers, the majority of whom depend on rain-fed agriculture.
To deliver inputs, FAO is using a kit system comprising crop seed varieties appropriate for the agro-ecological zones of the northeast. In kit one, farmers can choose between millet, maize or sorghum seed, given with a 25 kilogram bag of fertilizer. In kit two, women farmers are being offered seed for nutritionally beneficial vegetables like amaranthus and okra – high in micronutrients like iron, potassium and Vitamin C. Kit three includes seed for groundnut or sesame and will be distributed only to women. With a high market value, groundnut and sesame will bring in much-need income for crisis-affected women-headed households in the three states.
To receive agricultural inputs in the 2018 rainy season, farmers were selected based on their safe access to land for agriculture, ability to farm in the season and the scale of their need or vulnerability. The seed being distributed by FAO have a high seeding rate per hectare and are drought, pest and disease tolerant. Using a ‘twin-track’ approach, FAO is working jointly with the World Food Programme to distribute agricultural inputs alongside food aid, thereby reducing the risk of households employing negative coping practices such as consuming or selling the seed and fertilizer received.
“A restoration of livelihoods, particularly in agriculture will be central for a full recovery in the region,” said Suffyan Koroma, FAO Representative in Nigeria during a message celebrating the launch of FAO’s rainy season programme on 27 June, 2018. Koroma shared that the rainy season is a major opportunity to strengthen livelihoods in the selected northeastern states. “For farmers who are able to farm this season, FAO’s programme will reinforce access to quality inputs which will boost yields and household’s food and nutrition status,” he said.
Due to the alarming humanitarian needs faced by agriculture-based households in northeastern Nigeria where an estimated 2.9 million people will face heightened food insecurity between the May to September, FAO requested USD 31.5 million in its 2018 Appeal for the country. So far, 13.2 million has been mobilised, of which some funding is a carryover from 2017.
In worst-affected Borno State, households will receive inputs provided through funding from the European Commission, the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO), The Governments of Belgium and Norway and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA). In Adamawa, FAO’s major resource partners include ECHO, Norway and Belgium. In Yobe State, FAO has collaborated with SIDA, ECHO, Norway, Ireland and the United States’ Food for Peace programme to support households in the 2018 rainy season.
Under the multi-agency 2018 Humanitarian Resource Plan for Nigeria, the country needs an estimated USD 1.05 billion to reach 6.1 million people in need.