OVERVIEW OF RA SCALING OUT

ACTIVITIES AT THE KANO RICEHUB

NIGERIA-2017

Tarfa B.D.

Institute for Agricultural Research

Ahmadu Bello University Zaria

Nigeria

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PARTNERS• CURRENT

– KNARDA

– NCRI

• FUTURE

-SG 2000

-USAID Markets Projects

-IFDC-Nigeria

-Seed companies

-Local authorities

-Local Media organizations2

TRAININGS

• 101 (Youth, EAs, IP and Notore staff were

trained on RA

• 75 service providers planned and recruited

• 75 participated RA and Data collection (ODK)

• Bagwai 17

• Bunkure 14

• Kura 16

• Garin Mallam 16

• Warawa 12

• Total 75 3

Service Providers• All service providers were males

• No female service provider was engaged

because females are not allowed to visit and

interact with freely

• There are suggestions that women service

providers should be recruited to provider RA

for women

• This is being considered for the scaling up by

interested partners

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RA Farmers Distribution in Nigeria

• Kano alone constituted 33% of Nigerian Data

No RiceAdvice

site

No of RA data

synchronized with

server

1 Jigawa 3182

2 Kano 4741

3 Kebbi 2454

4 Kogi 969

5 Lafia 823

6 Niger 2155

14324Total

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Analysis RA Farmers In Kano• 98 % were males

• 2 % were females

• Low female participation is because they are

not allowed to be engaged freely in farming

activities because of religious and cultural

believes.

• However, training female service providers

may improve women participation in the

adoption of RA

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MONITORINGS• 3 monitoring trips were conducted by Kokou &

Tarfa

• 2 monitoring tours were conducted by Tarfa

alone

• Few ODK had problems with the soft ware and

were re-installed during the monitoring tours

7

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Remaining activities• Currently soil sampling is going on and will be

completed by 1st week of March, 2017

• Collections and delivery of the soil samples to

the appropriate laboratory

• Workshop for development of strategy to scale

up RA is planned for 27th February to 1st March

2017

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SUCCESS STORIES

• Service provider from warawa bought and

android phone to download RA for personal

use

• Service provider procured a piece of land using

remunerations gotten from the Japan project

• 75 youth obtained knowledge and capacity to

use android phones for RA, GPS, ODK,

Distance and area measurement.

• Many farmers said RA increased their rice yield

and decreased amount of fertilizer used.

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SUCCESS STORIES• Federal Department of Agricultural extension

(FDAE) Abuja has requested for me on RA for

possible inclusion in the national extension

systems.

• The National Agricultural Extension Research

and Liaison services (NAERLS) ABU Zaria,

which has national mandate for research in

extension methodologies has also shown

interest in the use of the RA tool by the

institute.

• Local authorities commended RA team

members for keeping to time on appoinments11

SUCCESS STORIES

• International organizations (IPNI) are

studying what we doing with RA for

possible development of similar tools for

maize (TAMASA).

12

Planning for coming season

• USAID Markets project have requested for

training of 23 staff (7th-11th March is fixed for

this training)

• SG, 2000 and other seed companies may take

up the scaling up of RA for their farmers

(clarification may come during workshop)

• Target area is Kano rice hub

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CONSTRAINTS• Cost of android phones and tablets may limit

access to the RiceAdvice tool.

• The cost of RiceAdvice service is not yet

ascertained

• About 2-3 tablets were bad

• Lost of installed programme on tablet (RA &

ODK)

• 3 tablets were faulty at the point of collection

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Conclusions• RA offers great opportunity for improving rice

yield in farmers’ fields in Kano state, Nigeria

• Sustainable out-scaling mechanism (e.g.

business model development including youth

linking with other agricultural services) can be

sustain the delivery of RA to farmers.

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THANK YOU

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