18/07/2024
PLATEAU CAME NUMBER 3 FROM 33 WITH MUTFWANG'S INTERVENTION-CHIEF GIDEON G DANDAM, FADAMA 111 & N-CARES SPC...50,000 FARMERS IN PLATEAU WILL GET INPUTS SOON-DANDAM ..17 LGC CHAIRMEN OF PLATEAU STATE SHOULD BUY MILLING MACHINES FOR THEIR FARMERS TO AVOID FRETING OF FARM PRODUCTS-DANDAM.
The Group Managing Editor of the NewsGate Magazine,Chief Amb Nanyah Daman, the Chief Executive Officer and the Publisher of the NewsCrest Newspaper,Enoch Shaks, the Managing Editor of the News Parrot Newspaper,Daniel Kura, the Editors of the Ace News Online,David Kazi, Jat HotNews Newspaper,Justin Jattim, Frank News Magazine,Michael Nangwang, Emerald Magazine,Anastasia Jatbyen, Trust News Online,Vanessa Timbyen, Reliable and Factual News Online,Nanpon Maigemu, and the Prompt News Online,Nanzing Zingkong had a media chat with Chief Gideon G Dandam, the State Project Coordinator of Fadama111 and the Focal Person of Fadama111 N-Cares in his Rayfield Office in Jos, the Plateau State capital to educate the members of the general public on the activities of Fadama111 and N-Cares since inception to date.
The press interview was explosive, frank, detailed and educative. Chief Gideon G Dandam spoke on the achievements of the outfits, their challenges and their prospects. The most interesting aspect of the interview is how the programmes have positively turned the life of rural dwellers and beneficiaries into self sufficient citizens, how Plateau State which was on position 33 in Nigeria came to position 3 with the coming of Governor Caleb Manasseh Mutfwang who graciously paid the counterpart funds,wants the 17 LGCs to buy milling machines for their farmers and to reach 50,000 farmers with inputs soon.
Enjoy the Excerpts:
NewsGate Magazine:Good afternoon sir, for the purpose of our readers,blogs,contents and our viewers can we know you?
Chief Gideon Dandam:I am Chief Gideon G Dandam, the Fadama 111 and N-Cares Coordinator on the Plateau.
NewsGate Magazine:The program has been around for sometime now, how has it gone on the Plateau, are people appreciating what you people have been doing?
Chief Gideon Dandam: Yeah Fadama Cares came as a result of COVID-19 that you are aware was pandemic all over the world. And because it has affected a lot of economic activities nationwide, the Federal Government, State Governments and the World Bank came together and designed a program that can reduce the hardship that people faced in terms of economic growth. And so they were able to arrive at the program where three agencies will be involved in the implementation. And that includes CSDA, Fadama and PLASMEDA.
For Fadama, we are focusing on food security, you also recalled that during that time of COVID-19, farmers could not access their farms, farmers could not sell their farm products. And so there was a lot of losses incurred by this same farmers and it became a very big problem. There was a lot of hunger after the COVID-19. So from the year 2020 the program kicked started, but it became effective in the year 2021, when the program was actually implemented.
The program is what we call a program for result, that is, when the government will invest, the World Bank will come and buy the products that was invested, is like a business in nature. By supporting the welfare of the people. So far that program was kicked started and here on the Plateau we were not doing so fine.
At the first instance because it was like an investment, like I earlier said,because there was no any support from the Government we couldn't do much,but when this present Government came on board, and His Excellency Governor Caleb Manaseh Mutfwang was fully brief about the program and its importance to the people and the Government of Plateau State, without any further hesitation, he keyed into it immediately. And at that time Plateau as a State was at number 33 nationwide, and the Governor saw the need to quickly investment resources in it. And by the special grace of God, today based on the assessment of the World Bank and it's rating so far Plateau which was number 33 at the bottom is now number 3 on top and all is because of the activities that we were able to do.
You will also recalled that we were able to procure fertilizer, and seeds, we also embarked on road rehabilitation across the Local Government Areas.
And so when the World Bank came and made their assessments ,in fact it was like a bombshell in terms of earnings to the State Government.
So the program was able to service a lot of communities across the State with small inputs. We are targeting the very poor farmers who have this need and they are attended to. We also went round the community where they have the challenge of road rehabilitation and we now upgrade their roads for them. And we also look at the issue of assets and we also help women with some simple assets with either productive assets like sheep, goats or pigs as grant to them.
We also look at market, because if you can remember, COVID-19 came from a market in China because of a dirty nature of environmental. So we came up with intervention program on improving sanitary program of wet market, by providing them with VIP toilets, overhead tank to serve the market within the market.
But in terms of road rehabilitation as I earlier said, we initially had two, and we also did twenty five, and now have 30 and if you multiply them it will give you 57 roads so far across the Local Government Areas of the State.
I must confess to you that His Excellency Governor Caleb Manaseh Mutfwang has been very supportive in terms of implementation.
As of now there are about 30 ongoing roads rehabilitation across different Local Government Areas of the State and we are hoping that we shall do more by the special grace of God.
Our focus is to support the farmers, and we have it in mind to reach out to about fifty thousand (50,000) beneficiaries in our next support to farmers, which we hope it will soon commence. But for the roads it has already commenced and each road it is supposed to have about one thousand five hundred (1,500) beneficiaries.
So by the time you multiply the number of beneficiaries times 30 that will give you a lot of beneficiaries across the communities. That's why if you go round the communities you will see the performance of crops is very encouraging, why, because the farmers received fertilizer very early this year. Some used it for dry season farming while some kept theirs for this raining season.
From my field assessment, the yield we are expecting from farmers this season,it is going to be much, despite the challenge of herdsmen destroying farms. If you add to this you will agree with me that the Irish potatoes that used to be very costly some months ago, now it has started coming down in price. And the simple reason is because there is much production of it. And that shows that the program has impacted much on the farmers, because on the Plateau here, we are supporting maize, rice, Irish potatoes and vegetables farming.
Then for livestock we are also supporting farmers to have day old chicks broilers, we also support farmers with sheep, goats and pigs.
We also support farmer to have assets like rice milling machine, and tomatoes milling machine as productive assets.
NewsGate Magazine:Okay Sir, you started talking about the challenges, one of which is herdsmen disturbing farmers, what other challenges have you discovered?
Chief Gideon Dandam: The other challenges we face is that the demand is very high, while we have limited resources in our disposal that can go round. It is our wish that it will be better than yesterday. And I know if His Excellency continues to hear these challenges, he will be able to increase the support for his people who are behind him 100%. These are some of the challenges that we continue to have even though apart from herders issues, and then the issue of demand for assistance is very high.
NewsGate Magazine:Sir, you were talking about roads, is it that the roads are coming from Fadama 111 or N-Cares?
Chief Gideon Dandam:Yeah like I said, we go to communities where they have challenges of roads to enable the farmers access their farms and then move the products to the cities, we now go there, make assessment and then we go and rehabilitate them accordingly.
NewsGate Magazine:The President just created Ministry of Livestock, do you see it as a boaster of what you are doing or a duplication of duty?
Chief Gideon Dandam:Well for me, I see it as an avenue to give more employment to the teaming unemployed youths, and also it will serve as an avenue for staff to grow in their career. But most importantly, one need to understand that livestock does not start and end with only cows alone, but livestock farming is the combination of all kinds of animal farming which includes sheep, goats, pigs,poultry, rabbits and the rest. So when you have that ministry I want to believe that the issue of animal roaming about will become the issue of the past.
It may interest you to know that I went to Rwanda and spent 10 days there. And in this 10 days I spent there, I have never seen one single cow roaming the street despite the policy of the President of giving one cow to each family to rear. So I asked a question,where are the cows that the President is giving you people that I can not see any. And they replied that their cows are always indoors.
So why is ours different here in Nigeria despite the havoc we are getting from cows roaming around,which is much. We must imbibe the Rwanda kind of Livestock farming.
NewsGate Magazine:Lastly Sir, speak on anything that bothers you, whether Locally, Nationally or Internationally that you think it should be addressed.
Chief Gideon Dandam:What I want to consider now is for every sector of government, especially the Local Government and the State Government to embrace the issue of supporting farmers. You discover that at the Local Government level,no Chairman has shown a commitment apart from the Chairman of Mikang Local Government Council of Plateau State.
The present Chairman of Mikang Local Government Council procured fertilizer and seeds and he shared it to farmers of his Local Government Area.
Let the other local government councils do same, and before you know it, there will be great development all over the places.
Secondly there is this issue of food security, this issue of food security is becoming an issue, let the Government at all level insure that there is food availability everywhere at the reach of a common man because the common man at the local government are the ones doing the production, and at the same time you find out that it is the common man that is having the issue of feeding every year.
How I wish that the Local and State Governments will embrace the policy of providing the local farmers with processing equipment of farm products.
If you see the amount of rice and maize that usually leave Plateau State to other States for processing, it is very alarming. How I wish the Government at all level here on the Plateau will be able to procure processing machines to the farmers.
If you go to places like Katsina, Sokoto and Kano States,the number of processing equipment that are processing rice that are brought from Plateau State is something else.
I've the opportunity to travel all over this country and I can confidently tell you that there is no where that has the land like Plateau that can produce the rice that Plateau State can produce.
You will hear some people will be talking about Abakalaki rice, I did my secondary school there in the seventies. And I spent five good years there and I will tell you that it is only in Afikpo that they are producing rice. Whereas there is no local government here on that Plateau that you can't grow rice.
Do you know that we supported a group of women in Kanke Local Government Areas of Plateau State.We gave them a processing machine and these women brought in one dropped out student to be working for them, this young man later went back and wrote his SSCE and he passed, as of today I will tell you that this boy is now a graduate.
Internationally ,my thinking too is how we can be able to embrace the issue of fuel, like I earlier said, I went to Rwanda, their one litre is equivalent to N1600 and you won't find a single queue in the fuel station and fuel is being imported there. Throughout my 10 days stay in Rwanda,I didn't notice any queue, why Nigeria?But here in Nigeria we have the fuel and every single day you must see people queuing for fuel. So internationally let us see how we can copy and see how we can be able to imbibe this culture in this country.
