The Agro Processing Productivity Enhancement and Livelihood Improvement Support (APPEALS), a World Bank assisted project by the federal government and Kaduna state government has supported 1,403 farmers in the last three years.
The project, which is for three agriculture value chains of maize, ginger and dairy in Kaduna state, has also received approval for support of another 3,700 farmers and a separate no objection for 1,400 women and youth beneficiaries in the state, APPEALS state project coordinator, Dr. Yahaya Aminu has said.
Speaking on the sidelines of Kaduna state 7th Implementation Support Mission in Kaduna, Dr. Yahaya said, “We are progressing very well. We have already supported 1,403 beneficiaries in the three priority value chain in the state which are dairies, ginger, and maize. We have already got approval for supporting another 3,700 beneficiaries. We also have approval for supporting our 1,400 beneficiaries for the women and youth.
“We have received 332 no objections and 53 no objections are being reviewed covering 1,435 women and youth in the region of N8 million (about N3 billion). We have completed our design for infrastructural interventions in the various agro-business cluster, and before the end of this year, we will advertise for the project and then by first quarter of next year we will commence implementation.”
He said the mission is for the World Bank and counterparts to look at how far the project has gone in implementing the APPEALS project and what needed to be done to achieve more.
“This is the fourth year of the project and it is expected that we are as close as possible to the PDO. We have fully commenced disbursement for beneficiaries both for the women and youth empowerment programme for the value chain.”
The World Bank Task Team leader, Dr. Adetunji Oredipe, in his remarks said the mission is a periodic support to the project in the field. “When we come around every six months, our focus is to appreciate what is on ground and begin to ask ourselves what are the additional to bring to the job they are doing in the field and then agree with them on what we should look at next in the implementation season.
Kaduna state commissioner for Agriculture, Alhaji Ibrahim Hussaini, said the programme is about “agro productivity and enhancement project for improvement of livelihood of the small farm owners in our community.”
