Date: 2017-10-04

THE minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbe will on Wednesday November 27 this year, commission and launch the first ever national association of agricultural commodity Value Chain Development (VCD) facilitators at the Agricultural and Rural Management Training Institute (ARMTI), Ilorin Kwara state.

According to the event expected to draw participants across the nation, an interim executive body would be elected and inaugurated just as the ARMTI would provide facilities for a secretariat of the association.

The Public Relations Officer of the ARMTI Mr. Mayowa Gidado, in a press briefing in Ilorin ahead of the programme, the chapters of the association would be spread across the 36 states of Nigeria, with the mandate for each of the states to spread the advocacy of the VCD throughout their states.

Gidado said, "This will ensure that each state actively keys into the value chain programme to unlock the immense agriculture potentials of the state through adequate budgetary allocation and funding as well as other needed support. Members of the association in each state are required to mount the VCD training in the grassroots.".

It would be recalled that in 2012, ARMTI was commissioned to conduct the first baseline study on agricultural commodity VCD, the result of which it then proceeded to present round the nation through its existing six geo political zones.

The study on the VCD gave the appropriate picture and provided information on the level of VCD among the agricultural commodities in each geo political zone with emphasis on the commodities from which each of the zones has comparative advantage.

With this development, The ARMTI has continued to train farmers, facilitators, administrators and other actors along various agricultural commodity value chains on how to develop virile chains.

Besides, the Institute had conducted a National Training of Trainers (TOT) for VCD facilitators from the year 2013 to 2016.

Gidado added, "These have been empowered and mandated to further step down the training to the grassroots level in their respective states. It is all these facilities that are about to be inaugurated into an association for proper coordination and efficiency of efforts."