FAO scaling up assistance for IDPs

Buoyed by the prospect of restarting life through agricultural livelihoods, many internally displaced persons (IDPs) in North East Nigeria are returning to farms supported by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Under the ongoing Restoring Agricultural Livelihoods of IDPs, Returnees and Vulnerable Host Families in North East Nigeria project, FAO is reaching 174 400 people with vegetable seeds and irrigation support for the dry season.

Ahead of the upcoming rainy season, FAO is planning to considerably scale up its interventions in the region to ensure that those who return to farms receive the support they need to plant in time and produce food to sustain themselves and their families.
With more than 80 percent of northeastern Nigeria’s rural population depending on crop or livestock farming, investing in agriculture now is critical to tackling food insecurity.

“We are approaching a critical period in the agricultural calendar. This is our main opportunity to tackle these truly staggering levels of food insecurity by helping at-risk families to produce their own food. The rainy season begins in May-June. Farmers need to have seeds, fertilizers and tools in their hands by then so they can plant. If they miss this season, humanitarian costs are just going to keep rising and rising into 2018.

Nutrition outcomes will worsen and this will affect today’s children for the rest of their lives,” Dominique Burgeon, Director of Emergency and Rehabilitation at FAO said during a high-level donor visit to a FAO project site Fariya. The delegates were visiting Borno State to see the impact of conflict and violence on civilian populations and the response by national and local authorities and international organizations.
FAO is supporting 2,000 farmers in Fariya, a village in Jere Local government, just a few kilometers outside of Maiduguri town.

With funding from the Governments of Belgium, Ireland and Japan, the intervention aims to enhance the self-sufficiency of returnees and vulnerable host families, women and youths through training and critical inputs including seedlings, water pumps and fertilizer for vegetable production.

Pauline Torehall, Minister Counsellor/Head of Politics, Information and Communication Section at the European Union Delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS, stated: “I think that this [agricultural intervention] is exactly what is needed in this part of Nigeria where so many people have lost their sources of livelihood because of the crisis. Women and youths are very vulnerable here and they absolutely need a new livelihood.”

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