Since the project began, incomes for women have tripled and families are benefitting from significantly higher farming yields.
Around 1,400 Nigeriens are gaining increased food security, thanks to a comprehensive Islamic Relief project that is boosting crop production.
According to the World Food Programme, 2.5 million people in Niger are unable to meet their basic food requirements. 42 per cent of children are chronically malnourished, and one in eight never reach their fifth birthday.
Poor and very poor families are the hardest hit in a country that suffers cereal and pasture deficits and high unemployment. Even during good harvest years, in the lean season rates of acute malnutrition can peak rapidly beyond emergency thresholds.
Father of four Doula Soumana, lives in Sekomé village in the western region of Tillabéry.
“I do farming in the rainy season and care for my goats and sheep,” he said. Dependent upon agriculture to earn a living, poor crop yield meant Doula struggled to provide for his family.
“I sell some or most of my domestic animals to cope with food shortage until the next rainy season where I start rainfed crop production.”
Doula and his family are now benefitting from an Islamic Relief project to tackle the root causes of chronic food insecurity. In Tillabéry, four Téra district villages are already benefitting from the 230,000 EUR programme to enhance their ability to successfully produce millet, vegetables, and other vital crops.
The project – which is now in its final phase - is helping vulnerable women and men to maximise agricultural production and productivity. Two hundred men and 160 women are receiving training in new agricultural technique, and gender equalities for ensuring food security.
By the end of the scheme later this year, twenty hectares of unfertile farmland will be brought into use – increasing crop yield by 30 per cent per hectare. One hundred farming families will be provided with improved seeds – millet, vegetables and other field crops – as well as fertilizer and technical training to maximize their income. Trained committees will manage seed banks in each village, increasing the availability of productive seeds.
Five hectares of land will also be used by women’s groups to produce vegetables and other staples. The groups will receive training and gardening equipment so they can maintain the plots, which will have sustainable access to water from wells constructed by Islamic Relief.
We have set up community based organisations which are already mobilising local people to work together to promote food security initiatives in future. The project will also establish farmers networks and create links to government departments so the communities can continue to strengthen their food security.
Since the project began in 2011, incomes for women have tripled. Agricultural productivity in the targeted farms is now 25 to 85 per cent higher than in surrounding farms.