Kano State Government says it has concluded plans to recruit additional 1,000 agricultural extension workers to work across the 44 local government areas of the state.
The Managing Director of the Kano State Agricultural and Rural Development Agency (KNARDA), Dr Faruk Kurawa, disclosed this during KSADP/SAA Media Field Day visit on Thursday in Kano.
Kurawa said when the new administration came on board, it saw the need for the urgent agriculture extension workers because their numbers had significantly decreased due to deaths and retirements.
The KNARDA boss said that the state has about 1,200 extension workers, which he said was still the highest in the country, but they were recruiting an additional 1,000 people to make it 2,200.
“Kano remains one of the states with the highest number of about 1,200 agents in the country, the gradual retirement and increasing population size of farmers are parts of the critical factors necessitating urgent replacement,” he added.
He further explained that the government was working hard to outgrow the size of extension agents and bridge the existing gap to the recommended 1:500 agent-to-farmers ratio.
The Kano State Agro-pastoral Development Project is a five-year program which focuses on improving crop production and enhancing livestock productivity in the state.
It is funded by the Islamic Development Bank, IsDB, the Lives and Livelihood Funds (LLF) and the government of Kano state.
The Executing Agency of the program is the Kano State Agriculture and Rural Development Authority (KNARDA).
The overall objective of the KSADP is to contribute to reducing poverty and strengthening food and nutrition security in the state by developing agro pastoral production systems (production, processing, and retailing).
SAA is a technical partner under the KSADP providing technical support to the government’s extension efforts of enhancing agricultural productivity and competitiveness through increased access to inputs Value addition.
