World Bank grant $500mln for rehabilitation of irrigation facilities

Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje has applauded the World Bank for allocating $500 Million for the rehabilitation of irrigation infrastructure in Northern Nigeria.

He noted that the project, which would be linked up with other World Bank agriculture projects in the region, is in line with the determination of his administration to enhance food security, create more jobs and alleviate poverty.

Ganduje, who made the assertion while receiving the task team leader of the World Bank, Commercial Agriculture Development Project (CADP), El-Hadj Adama Toure in his office, assured that his administration would maintain collaboration with the World Bank to promote commercialization of agriculture in the state.

The governor maintained that with the dwindling revenue from the federation account, his administration has no option than to embrace and promote commercial agriculture which he described as reliable and sustainable. Thus, he promised that the state government would release counterpart funds for the project soon.

“We must come back to the drawing board, we must till the soil and get what is coming out from the soil which is more reliable, more dependable and more sustainable”, he said.

The governor described the commercial agriculture development project as timely in view of the importance of agriculture as the mainstay of the state’s economy and the federal government’s plan to ban the importation of rice and wheat into the country.

El-Hadj Adama Toure, task team leader, World Bank, said Nigeria CADP was designed in 2009 to strengthen agricultural production systems and facilitate access to markets for eight agricultural value chains in five pilot states.

The project is expected to impact on 50,000 small and medium commercial farmers in five Nigerian states including Kano, while many households will benefit indirectly through farm access roads, energy and market spillover effects

In Kano State, the project is promoting rice, maize and dairy value chains which the state has comparative ecological and socio-economic advantages.
Toure disclosed that, as an important sector in the country, agriculture in Nigeria is the biggest portfolio that received support of the World Bank in Sub-Saharan Africa.