By Roland Ike

The Ebony State House of Assembly has commended the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) assisted Value Chain Development Programme (VCDP) for supporting real farmers in the state.

The Chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture , Chief Onyebuchi Ogbadu made the commendation on Thursday during its oversight visit to the programme’s headquarters in Abakalikii.

Ogbadu said that the committee’s mandate was to liaise with relevant stakeholders in the state’s agricultural sector to ensure that real farmers were empowered for bountiful food in the state.

“This mandate is serious and that was why the speaker of the House identified lawmakers who are farmers and own farms as the committee’s members.

“We will identify IFAD–VCDP’s activities in the state and areas to assist in enhancing its services through legislation among other means,” he said.

Ogbadu urged the programme to increase its enlightenment on relevant stakeholders to combat standard measurement challenges on produce such as rice.he Deputy Whip of the House who is member of the committee, Lucas Chukwu also commended IFAD–VCDP on its numerous interventions that have assisted farmers in the state.

Chukwu said the committee was impressed with the programme’s utilisation of the counterpart funds from the state government for famers’ benefit.

“It will be beneficial to Ebonyi to pay counterpart funds in the range of N400m and access interventions worth over N4b.

“This makes us desirous to assist you to enable our farmers to access interventions for increased food production in the state,” he said.

The State Programme Coordinator (SPC) of IFAD–VCDP, Sunday Ituma thanked the lawmakers for the visit, noting that it would open avenues of collaboration between both bodies.

“The project design of the programme allows relevant stakeholders to conduct oversight on its activities to ascertain the progress of implementation.

“We had fruitful interactions with the committee and it requested that we submit a list of our achievements and challenges for necessary intervention.”

Ituma noted that since 2015, the programme has injected billions of naira into the state’s economy though its interventions in eight local government areas of operation.

“We have inaugurated modern rice processing centres at Iboko ,(Izzi LGA) Omege Echara (Ikwo LGA) Osso (Edda LGA) while upgrading 20 of such centres each for rice and cassava across participating LGAs.

“We have constructed 80.4kilometres of rural farm roads to assist farmers access markets and reduce loss of farm produce.

“We have constructed 94 culverts, 20 mini bridges and 63 solar-powered bore holes to assist farmers in rural communities among other interventions.”

He urged the assembly to domesticate the national standard weight and measure act in the state to ensure that buyers of produce such as rice, get due value for their money.

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