NECSOB, FAO Organize Validation Workshop On Agric Based Livelihoods Activities in Borno LGAs

The Network of Civil Society Organizations Borno State, NECSOB in partnership with Food and Agricultural Organization of The United Nations , FAO has organized a one day Validation Workshop on Rapid Need Assessment of Agricultural Based Livelihood Activities in LGAs of Borno State for criticisms and observations.

The Chairman of CSO, Borno State Chapter, Ambassador Ahmed Shehu noted that the assessment of the rapid need of the rural was a very crucial and important issue to be assessed towards empowering the rural actors especially, the farmers and strategize for the comfort and convenience of the returnee IDPs across the state.

Speaking at the opening ceremony,y held at the Banquet Hall of Borno State Hotels, GRA Maiduguri Friday, the Chairman said FAO entered into understanding with the Network of Borno Sate Civil Society Organizations with a view to make proper findings of the agric rural needs of the rural people for subsequent support ad assistance for FAO and other collaborating partners.

He urged every participant to avail him or herself of the findings and make meaningful contributions and observations for the purpose of reliability and viability of the final reports or findings of the project.

The Representative of the FAO Country Representative, MrJona Makino said FAO has been i n Borno sate since 2016 and in Nigeria 40 years ago supporting or intervening in four areas of seeds, seedlings, fertilizer, cash support, livestock and farming tools among others to rural farmers and IDPs since 2016.

He added that livestock sector of CSO the FAO has been supporting the farmers with agricultural and livestock feed's and will also soon embark on poultry activities to support the farmers in the state.

Jona further explained that FAO also disburses cash to the farmers to cushion their sufferings while intending to engage in oil soon.

He said the interventions was civil in collaboration with other partners, NGOs, LGAs, etc and the situation was changing despite the fact that Borno state is dynamic as people have been retuning back to their gist communities .

"As such, this situation need rapid need assessment. That is why it is proper for the situation to be assessed for humanitarian responses. It will also give us the opportunity to know and have a better knowledge of areas if need and support or intervene", Jona said.

Representative of UN Humanitarian Coordinator, Awwal Abubakar commended the organizers of the workshop for successfully carrying out the project and urged the participants and organizers to come out with a reliable findings that will serve as a guide for other collaborating partners to intervene properly.

Mal. Hassan Baba of the CSO Borno State gave an overview of the findings of the assessment conducted by NECSOB explaining that FAO signed an MOU on assessing the rapid agricultural based needs of the farmer in 6 LGAs of the 3 senatorial districts of Borno, Borno central, Borno north and Borno south.

He said questionnaires were administered to 4 groups in each of the LGAs covered comprising youths group, women group, Local Vigilante group and Elders group.

According to him, English language was used as the main language while local dialect was also used for translation for rural respondents who could bit understand English while simple data and correlation and survey was intended to gave a background of the activities for the intended 2019 proposals.

Hassan added that evidences were used to safe waste of resources for the rapid assessment need in valuing all measures for intervention and reliable approach to all the LGAs.

He said the LGAs Chairmen, Field Offers, Agric officers, Land and Survey Officers of the LGAs have contributed while a Validation was conducted to reduce errors through sample 15 people from each group and set of data to be presented for Validation that has been certified by the project team to be suitable and reliable for the Assessment.

The Project Coordinator of NECSOB said 5 targeted communities were selected from each of the 6 targeted LGAs and each LGA has its own population either residents or IDPs, land tenure system was hiring or leading based on one bag per hectare whole N5000-15000 charged or a bag per hectare.

He added that the rural farmers interviewed said they were not allowed to arm beyond 5 hectur3distce while there was restriction of movement of vehicles in some LGAs and others don't have any restriction, 80% were residents of the localities while 20% were either IDPs or Returnees.

Similarly, 2017 farming season was identified to be by the interviewees to have less produce due to drought and insecticides and pesticides while framers were not allow to farm beyond 1-5 kilometer's depending in the locality and there was no restriction of vehicular movement to convey their farm produces.

CBOs, NGOs and other stakeholders including Community Leaders and security agencies among others were involved in the processes, the actual and various needs if each LGA farmers were identified , challenges and problems as well as potentials were also gathered and intended to be used in the recommendation and suggestion aspects f the project after effecting and updating all the observations, criticisms and errors identified and contributed respectively.