As part of efforts to boost food production, towards addressing the increasing demand to feed the ever-growing population in Nigeria, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has trained farmers, extension workers, researchers, and irrigation technicians in drip irrigation.
A statement by FAO Communication Specialist, David Tsokar, recently, the training was held in Kano under the aegis of the FAO initiative to promote drip irrigation scheme in selected sites in the country, with the theme “Innovations in Irrigation Development and Practices for increased Water and Land Productivity for Beneficiary Farmer Leaders, Agriculture Extension Officers, Irrigation Technicians and Irrigation Engineers.”
Declaring the training open, the Director of the Irrigation and Drainage department at the Federal Ministry of Water Resources, Engineer Esther Oluniyi said the initiative is part of government’s efforts to promote food security and sustainable water management for irrigated agriculture with the expectation to produce more crops per drop of water on the land.
He noted that the briefing and coaching sessions would broaden the understanding of participants on efficient “farm management practices to produce even more crops on the same land using less amount of water, implementation and management procedures of drip irrigation kits for sustainability.”.
FAO Representative, Fred Kafeero noted that though designed as a lesson learnt from operation, maintenance, and the rehabilitation of challenged irrigation schemes in Nigeria by the department, the initiative was developed as a pilot initiative in collaboration with the Water Resources Ministry.
He stated that it is viewed to compare “low energy drip based irrigated system side by side gravity canal, flood based irrigated system, with the view to come up with a study on some irrigation parameters such as volume of water use, the number of crops produced, cost of power, labour cost among others”.
The training was attended by representatives of the Federal Ministry of Water Resources, leaders of farmer groups, Hadejia-Jamare River Basin Development Authority, the Agriculture Development Programme from Kano state, and academia from the Bayero University Kano (BUK) among many others.
The objective of the training is to enhance understanding of the technical processes of the different stages of drip irrigation practices with a view to cascade the training to the individual/ farmer groups in the irrigation scheme. This is against the background that drip irrigation reduces the impact of drought and climate change on food production; contamination of groundwater and rivers caused by fertilizer leaching is averted; it is advantageous to rural communities in poverty reduction due to increase in outputs and reduces rural urban drift.
