Farm to empower rural households via tree planting

Green Sahara Farms has commenced planting of economic trees across four selected states. The farm under its Green Tree Thrift project had commenced provision of 300 nursery of Cashew Avocado and Gum Arabic trees to each household in the benefiting states, from which they can generate a minimum of N3 million yearly from the third year of planting.

Already there is a huge global demand for the tree crops, hence the tree-planting project will not only increase Nigeria’s foreign exchange earnings but also help tackle climate change.

The Chief Executive Officer of Green Sahara Farms, Suleiman Dikwa, during a chat with journalists in Abuja, mentioned that the farm had launched the projects in four states namely, Yobe, Nasarawa, Plateau and Katsina where it had planted 250,000 trees.

Meanwhile, the farm has secured a grant from Prince of Wales to plant 250,000 trees yearly in the four benefiting states. The Reforest Action Project has the goal to plant 10 billion trees in 10 years across the globe so as to create a green economy.

As the implementing partner of the Reforest Action project in Nigeria, Dikwa disclosed that Green Sahara Farms had set a target to plant 25 million trees in the four selected states.

He said that the 25 million trees will uplift about 84,000 very poor households out of poverty, at an average of six persons per family and create a bio industry on the back of 300 trees minimum per family, which will increase their disposable income per household by 3000 percent.

He pointed out that the green tree thrift project is an economic and cultural strategy to develop a bio-economy whereby the sustainable utilisation of natural resources through agro forestry would improve and create a green industry.

On how people can earn a minimum of N3 million yearly from planting trees, Dikwa explained a cashew tree produces a minimum of 20kg of fruit per tree, when multiplied by 300 trees, it gives six tonnes. He said a tonne of Cashew in the international market is about N500,000, when multiplied by six tonnes, it gives N3 million.

Also the firm has secured land from the Plateau state government to develop the largest tree nursery in Africa with the capability to develop 2.7million nurseries.