FG trains farmers on innovative ways of processing, packaging staple foods in Rivers 

Following the State of Emergency declared on food security by President Bola Tinubu on July 13, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) has trained over 200 farmers drawn from different parts of Rivers State on cassava processing, packaging, and value addition and utilisation.

The training, conducted at the Agricultural Development Programme (ADP) centre of the state, a branch under the supervision of FMARD, had representatives who were trained on tomatoes and yam cultivation.

The beneficiaries, who are mostly youths and women said the two days of emergency training carried out simultaneously across the South-south, Southeast, and Southwest, reiterated government’s commitment to boost the economy. 

Speaking to journalists during the training, the Assistant Chief Agriculture Officer, FMARD Extension Department, Iboroma Gloria, who supervised the cassava training workshop, explained that the purpose of the emergency training was to educate youths and women on cassava processing, packaging, value addition, and how it can be properly utilised.

“We are here to educate farmers on the new technology on cassava planting, that is best agricultural practices, basically what we taught them is processing, value addition on cassava, we do not want them to see that cassava can only be processed for garri there are other things that can come out from cassava we want them to maximise profits from cassava.”

On his part, the FMARD supervisor for the tomatoes training workshop, Ubani George, expressed optimism that the training would broaden the knowledge of farmers on ways to preserve such products.

George also assured that there would be a huge boost in the production of tomatoes, just as he affirmed that FMARD will continue to train farmers from time to time on tomatoes.

“We have successfully educated about 80 farmers on tomato production and we believe that with training like this, the high cost of tomatoes will come down.”

However, the FMARD supervisor for the yam training workshop, Amaibuama Orugbani, urged farmers to mobilise to form cooperative unions, saying for the Federal Government to work more effectively, Rivers State farmers should form one union where they can table all their complaints to the government in a uniform voice.