PIND’s Market Systems Development project supports farmers and small enterprises in key agricultural sectors in the Niger Delta to improve their productivity, leading to an increase in income and reduction of poverty. In Q3 of 2020, following the easing of interstate border restrictions and release of new guidelines of phased resumptions of public gathering, PIND worked closely with partners and market actors to expand outreach activities to farmers in strict adherence to the safety precautions and guidelines instituted to curtail the spread of COVID–19 pandemic.
By the end of the quarter, 16,624 farmers and agripreneurs were reached directly with information and knowledge on best practices, improved inputs and efficient technologies. It brings the year-to-date outreach figure to 37,481 which comes to 71% of the 52,500 target for 2020. More than 40% are women.
This resulted in 26,841 out of the farmers and entrepreneurs reached so far in 2020 recorded positive change in their net income of 9.05 billion Naira (aggregated) and creation of 10,305 new jobs between January and September 2020.
Also, PIND incentivized private investors and participating farmers to invest 6.3 billion Naira to implement good agricultural practices, technological innovations, purchase inputs and other capital expenditures during the quarter. Between January and September 2020, 8.1 billion Naira has been leveraged from these investors.
During the quarter, PIND developed and applied a framework for tracking and projecting the impact of the market development intervention activities in 2020 on the farmers and enterprises, using multipliers obtained from previous impact assessments, and complemented with outcomes data from field monitoring visits and the rate of adoption by program participants.
