By Hotpen
As part of their corporate social responsibilities, ATRI Commodities Nigeria Ltd has trained 5,000 farmers on Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) with emphasis on using organic fertilizer mostly derived from animal dungs, feces and from compost manure.
The Branch Manager of the project, Mr. Rahul Chodankar stated this at the launching of the Sustainability Commodity Program of Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) under phase 1 held at Yandutse town in Ringim local government, said the initiative was aimed at educating farmers to save cost of purchasing fertilizer (NPK and Urea) instead they should use organic fertilizer as alternative.
Mr. Rahul explained that their company trained farmers free of charge and in return they will procure the commodity after purchase at a reasonable price per kilogram, the program according to him has impacted the lives of hundreds of farmers across Nigeria with the hope to extend the number of the farmers to 10,000 next year.
He said:-“we targeted 5,000 sesame farmers across Jigawa State and involve more farmers as beneficiaries of the project in the next year farming season and has conducted such exercise in some states of the federation such as Kwara, Nasarawa, Kano and Jigawa”.
Hotpen reports that, ATRI Commodities Nigeria Ltd, a private agricultural company with slogan ‘Friend of the Farmers’ has trained sesame farmers across 16 LGA’s in Jigawa state:- Kaugama, Maigatari, Birniwa, Guri, Ringim, Taura, Gagarawa, Garki, Suletankarkar, Gumel, Kafin Hausa, Auyo, Malam Madori, Jahun, Miga and Gwaram.
Also speaking, CRS Manager ATRI Commodities Nig. Ltd, Dzahemen S. IIiambee said the training conducted to sesame farmers will enable them to save money from fertilizer purchase, noted that one hectare of land by spending N130,000 for 3 bags of inorganic fertilizer namely 2bags of NPK and a bag of Urea.
“The farmer has the choice to purchase only 1 bag of NPK at N40,000 and make do with his organic manure which is a bull carrier (One amalanke) is estimated at just (N1500 to N2000) meaning he can use as high as 20 bull carrier on a hectare of land bringing it to a total of only N60,000 spend on fertilizer application as against N130,000 which will be more or less economically waste on the part of farmer having looked at the analysis leading to the N70,000”. Dzahemen stated.
He stressed that the advantage of using organic fertilizer by farmers, it can take up to five years without applying fertilizer again in the farm, but NPK and Urea are been applied every season of farming, called on the benefitting farmers to make good use of what they learnt during the training.
Mohammed Yau Madana, a resource person with the ATRI commended the agricultural firm for their support to the farmers, saying the gesture will reduce cost of fertilizer purchase by using organic fertilizer, saying apart from this, the company trained farmers on erosion control to enable them utilize the applied organic fertilizer in their farms.
He advised farmers to adopt the use of tampoline in the course of processing their farm produce instead of displaying it on the road site as sand and other particles may penetrate and make the products unhygienic for consumption.
One of the benefiting woman farmers interview, Hajara Ismail YanDutse expressed gratitude to ATRI for the encouragement to sesame farmers to adopt the use of organic fertilizer for the farm products, saying they remain indebted to the kind gesture and described ATRI as truly friend of the farmers.
Also speaking, one of the benefitted farmers Ado Danladi said they are satisfied with what ATRI has taught them and will judiciously make good use of the ideas in applying organic fertilizer instead of inorganic ones, noted that apart from saving cost , the farm produce will grow faster and healthy.