The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) and the World Bank said they will provide grants to 12,283 farmers, under the FCT Fadama COVID-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus (FCT CARES) Programme.
FCT Minister of State, Dr Mariya Mahmoud said this on Thursday in Gwagwalada.
She spoke at the commencement of disbursement of grant to beneficiaries of the third batch of FCT Fadama CARES.
Mahmoud said the target of the FCTA and the World Bank was also to upgrade 17 wet markets across the FCT.
She said the disbursement was for the 2023/2024 dry season farming, adding that the FCTA had supported the attainment of food and nutritional security in the territory.
The Minister said FCT CARES Programme was a World Bank support targeted at recovery activities of existing, and emerging vulnerable and poor households that had been negatively impacted by the pandemic.
The Minister of State said the objective of the FCT CARES programme was to increase food security and safe functioning of the food supply chain in the FCT.
She said: “It is gratifying to note that the FCTA has allocated $4.5 million to the FCT Fadama CARES Programme to implement three Disbursement Linked Indicators.
“This amount is out of a total allocation of 15 million dollars made available to the FCTA by the World Bank for the implementation of the FCT CARES programme.
“Sequel to this, the FCTA and World Bank had set a target for the FCT Fadama CARES programme to provide grants support to 12,283 farmers and upgrade 17 Wet Markets in the FCT”.
Mahmoud added that the grants being provided to the beneficiaries cut across several agricultural value chains, crops, Livestock, aquaculture production as well as small scale processing and value addition.
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Lawan Geidam, the Mandate Secretary, Agriculture and Rural Development Secretariat of the FCTA, said 3,707 poor and vulnerable individuals would benefit from the third batch of disbursement.
He said the beneficiaries were drawn from 39 Farmers Community Association across the six Area Councils of the FCT.
Geidam said the 4,233 farmers that benefited from the first and second batch of the programme, were drawn from 64 farmers’ community associations across the FCT.
According to him, with the third batch disbursement, a total of 7,940 farmers had benefited from the programme in the FCT.
Geidam said the items to be distributed are: fertilisers, seeds and agrochemicals, sprayers and personal protective equipment for crop farmers, day old chicks and feeds for poultry farmers.
He said others are juveniles and feed for fish farmers, goats for Livestock farmers and grinding machines for women processors.
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