Baseline study data

The proposed project aims to drive increased production and consumption of OFSP among smallholder Farmers, thus improve food and nutrition security and livelihoods for women and children, especially improved diet diversity in Benue and Oyo state. The project also will build strong demand and capacity amongst stakeholders–from government to private sector, and farmer associations–to fully utilize OFSP and vine multiplication for improved nutrition and livelihood in the 2 selected states (Benue and Oyo) of Nigeria. The project will demonstrate, through the case of OFSP, how a bio-fortified crop can be profitably produced, marketed, and utilized in nutrition programming in the two selected states.

In collaboration with GAIN and selected state Agriculture Development Program (ADPs), the project will specifically empower at least 560 Farmers (70 per LGA) in Benue and Oyo states to access, farm and market OFSP for improved livelihood while their households and community generally will be aware of OFSP nutrition and economic benefits for adoption and consumption. This will entail capacity building (training), setting up demonstration plots for training of farmers on Good Agronomic Practices (GAP), train 40 selected farmers (5 per LGA) on vine multiplication by 16 (2 per LGA) Training of Trainers (ToT) and facilitate market linkages for produce. There will be a series of trainings on processing of OFSP roots into bio-available vitamin A-rich products as well as enriching indigenous food products with OFSP for both household consumption and income generation.