Governors of the 36 states have been charged to give support to the smallholder farmers, other agriculture-related small and medium enterprises to improve nutrition and food security.
The National President of All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Kabiru Ibrahim, and the Country Director of Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), Micheal Ojo, gave the charge yesterday at the 2023 Microgrant funding for nutritious Business Award Ceremony for 16 businesses in Abuja.
The grants were awarded at N3 million each to 16 small businesses by GAIN in Benue, Nasarawa, Kaduna and Oyo states.
Ojo in his keynote address, said the gathering is to celebrate Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).
He said the more the smallholders farmer in the country are empowered and encouraged with support that provide them access to expanding their production and connecting to markets, what they produce would not come to waste that is the big part of the solution to insecurity.
“We have been supporting many of them on this project that we call Strengthening Nutrition in Priority Staples over the past couple of years and the project is aiming to help those who are working in specific value chain, Vitamin A maize, Vitamin A cassava, orange sweet potato to help them to produce more and to process what they are producing so that they can have these food Items on the market.
“The point of this is to help to improve the nutritional quality of our food and diversify at times and we all as Nigerians consume a lot of cassava, a lot of maize, we consume a lot of potato but we now have opportunity to actually move those foods away from analog varieties to more nutritious varieties.
“All of these new varieties have very high levels of Vitamin A. Vitamin A deficiency is prevalent in our population and it is a very important micronutrient for health and wellbeing for children, for mothers but all of us.
“So this is a very important development. What we are doing with the microgrant that we are providing as support to these businesses is recognizing that many of them face the challenge of finding access to finance to grow the small and medium enterprises.
“We all know how difficult it is to access funding in Nigeria. This helps to take their businesses from whatever level they are to the next level and it can be used for improving their processing, it can be used for packaging or it can be used for assuring the quality of their products.
“It can be used for marketing of their products. It cand be used for so many things and we will work with the businesses to identify the best ways for them to use this micro grant fund.
“For each of the 16 businesses that we are awarding today, we are giving each one of them N3m. For a small business that is a substantial investment to support them to be able to invest in their businesses and to scale up what they are doing.
“So that is why we are here and I am really pleased that we have been able to bring everybody together and I am thankful to our partners in the four States where we are working, in Kaduna, state, in Nassarawa State, Benue State and Oyo State. These guys are here, the partners are here. I am really pleased,” he said.
