AKILIMO
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AKILIMO

AKILIMO PROMOTERS PLAN MOBILIZATION OF FARMERS IN NIGERIA

AKILIMO PROMOTERS PLAN MOBILIZATION OF FARMERS IN NIGERIA

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Promoters of AKILIMO in conjunction with Notore Chemical Industries plan to mobilize at least 30,000 cassava farmers for fertilizer recommendation (FR) tool. FR is one of the decision support tools that help farmers adopt best production practices for optimum yield. ACAI, the developers of AKILIMO, will be providing technical support to integrate AKILIMO tools into the operational process of the partners already profiled to be part of the mobilization in 2021. These partners include Cedro Royal, Centre for Inclusive Agriculture & Gender Development (CIA-GED), Zowasel, KOLPING Nigeria, Von Foods & Farms Limited, etc. While these partners on their own part will provide a platform for scaling AKILIMO to reach more farmers, Notore will ensure access to cassava blend fertilizer to these farmers. According to Samson Oguntoye, Regional Manager of Notore, he confirmed that specific cassava blends (i.e. NPK 20:12:26+2Mg) will both be used for trials in new locations and will be available for farmers to purchase for production.

ACAI Scaling Specialist, Thompson Ogunsanmi confirmed that more partners will be mobilized and the process of mobilizing these partners is part of sustainable approach to ensure AKILIMO is integrated to their operations. Josephine Fasakin, Kayode Oguntoye and James Ekele are the AKILIMO promoters supporting these activities in South West, South East and North Central of Nigeria, respectively. According to them, they will ensure all partners to be involved are identified and profiled based on.

The farmers will be trained on how to use AKILIMO tools to get recommendations that will guarantee improved yield and increase their income from their cassava farming business. Mobilizing them will help address bottlenecks around marketing of cassava roots after harvesting despite efforts to improve agronomy practices. It will also increase yields and productivity, facilitate access to quality and affordable inputs such as fertilizers, partnership with NOTORE will particularly address these issues as well as bottlenecks around processors’ fears by making cassava roots available for processing.

Farmers must have access to training and tools that will help them learn best production practices, leading to increased yield. To this end, it is expedient to reach out to as many farmers as possible, exposing them to methods through which they can make their farming better.