IFAD trains 75 smallholder farmers on financial literacy

No fewer than 75 smallholder farmers from community-based farmers’ organizations in Enugu State have been trained on financial literacy and management by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

The smallholder farmers were drawn from communities in five pilot council areas in the state participating in the ongoing IFAD’s Value Chain Development Programme Additional-Financing (VCDP-AF).

The IFAD-VCDP beneficiary councils are Aninri, Isiuzo, Nkanu East, Udenu and Enugu East.

Speaking on Wednesday in Enugu, the State Programme Coordinator, Dr Edward Isiwu, said the training as well as other series of training was meant to build capacity of farmers for growth.

Isiwu said that the training was a train-the-trainer workshop, adding that IFAD had provided a training module manual for the step-down trainings at their local government and organizational levels.

“Apex and cluster chairmen of farmers’ organizations, extension services agents and IFAD’s council area liaison officers are currently participating in the training on credit mobilization, financial literacy and management workshop.

“This training and others already done is to ensure that IFAD-VCDP programmes that focus on agricultural production, processing and marketing had long lasting transformational change on farmers ,’’ he said.

The Lead Trainer in the workshop, Dr Kelechukwu Okezie, said that the training was also meant to expose the farmers to the business aspect of farming and its accruing benefits.

Okezie said they had been taught on how to mobilize finance through personal and group savings and leveraging on borrowing from close relations, community-based institutions and institutionalised financial organizations.

“The training is building the skill of the rural farmers on practicable financial literacy.

“It will expose them to opportunities to increase and improve production, processing and marketing of their produce.

“It will also build their capacity to plan and see farming as a big business that can go beyond their locality to international dominance.

“Also, some financial incentives that they can leverage on to achieve this,’’ he said.

According to Okezie, local farmers need to move away from the old mind-set of seeing farming as a means of providing food for their family needs alone.

He said that farmers in the state needed to tap into the farming value chain in production, processing and marketing which the IFAD-VCDP programme was offering Enugu State.

A participant at the workshop, Mr Bede Nabo, said the training had been so enlightening and enriching on things necessary for expanding the farming business.

“I have learnt how necessary personal and organisational savings can be as well as the need for proper book-keeping in doing the business of farming,’’ Nabo said.

Another participant, Miss Chioma Okolo, said she was ready to impart what she learnt at the workshop to farmers in her Nkanu East council area.

“Farmers in Nkanu East will gain from the enormous benefits of the training as well as training modules manual given to me,’’ Okolo said.

Supreme reports that Aninri, Isiuzo and Nkanu East concentrated on rice farming while Udenu and Enugu East engage in cassava production.

The ongoing two -day workshop, began on Tuesday.