JICA trains Gwagwalada farmers on beans preservation

Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), in collaboration with the Federal Capital Territory Agricultural Development Programme FCT-ADP and Gwagwalada Area Council, has organised a three-day training programme on pre and post-harvest handling of beans for rural farmers in the area. Speaking at the event, the national president of JICA Alumni Association of Nigeria, Ahmed Agberankhe, said […]

Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), in collaboration with the Federal Capital Territory Agricultural Development Programme FCT-ADP and Gwagwalada Area Council, has organised a three-day training programme on pre and post-harvest handling of beans for rural farmers in the area.

Speaking at the event, the national president of JICA Alumni Association of Nigeria, Ahmed Agberankhe, said the objective of JICA was to impact positively on the country’s economy through knowledge members gained by undergoing training in Japan.

He said the agency organised the training for rural farmers in Gwagwalada who are into cultivation of beans to help them gain knowledge about the preservation of beans.

According to him, farmers and beans sellers as well as agricultural extension officers were participants at the workshop, which is aimed at impacting knowledge on the best way to manage beans.

“We decided to come to Gwagwalada Area Council to organise the training because we believe rural farmers in this  area are into beans farming. Besides that, the area council has agreed to partner with us along with the FCT ADP to train rural farmers,” he said.

The chairman of the council, Alhaji Adamu Mustapha, represented by his vice chairman, Alhaji Kasimu Mohammed, while declaring the workshop open, commended the agency for organizing the training for rural farmers in the area.

He said the council saw the need to partner with the agency so that rural farmers who are into beans farming would learn how to preserve beans after harvest.

The chairman urged the participants to ensure they gave utmost concentration to the training so that at the end, they could also impact what they have gained to other farmers that were not lucky to be part of the training.

Also speaking, the director of FCT Agricultural Development Project (ADP) Musa Suleiman Doma, said the training programme on beans preservation was timely.

He noted that since beans is already set for harvest and has the largest number of pests and diseases, there was need for farmers to be trained on how to preserve it.

He said a farmer who cultivates beans requires some strategy to do so, adding that there were other ways for storage of beans instead of using chemicals.

He said fumigation was also another method some farmers used for preservation of beans which he, however said, was dangerous and not good for human consumption.

The farmers that participated at the training were taken to some beans farms in the area to conduct practical preservation.