Badara Jobe, the director of the Njawara Agricultural Training Centre (NATC), has described 2008 as a successful and challenging year, noting that the centre has trained 30 long-term students on horticulture, animal husbandry and agro-forestry.

He added that 25 women participated in a short term training to serve as trainers in five (5) communities on horticulture and sustainable farming. Jobe was speaking in an interview with this reporter in Njawara, and underscored the importance his agency attaches to the training of farmers in sustainable agro–forestry techniques to improve farm production and profitability while promoting sustainable natural resource management.

These interventions will improve the social wellbeing of the beneficiaries by promoting gender equity, income generation, and self-employment, food security and curbing rural–urban migration.

The NATC has six hectares of sustainable agricultural demonstration farms, including a vegetable garden with a SMILE B drip irrigation system, a tree nursery, a woodlot, agro-forestry technologies, and a fruit orchard. He thanked Concern Universal for their continuous support and for providing D260,000 as a re-settlement package for youths and farmers, to enable them to kick-start their various individual projects at community levels.

Commenting on Disaster Risk Reduction, Jobe applauded Concern Universal for providing capacity building, and mapping out strategies on disaster risk reduction and humanitarian assistance to disaster victims in the region. He noted that the National Training Authority (NTA) has certified NATC in the areas of horticulture and training instructors. The registration, he said, is a clear testimony of their resolve to promote the standard of skills and knowledge, all geared towards the attainment of sustainable natural resource management.

He used the occasion to thank the Methodist Relief Development Fund (MRDF) in UK for funding 10 community poultry houses, aimed at increasing the income capacity of the community and the integrated farming system that will utilize the poultry droppings as farm yard manure to increase production.

He added that 2008 has witnessed the re-structuring of the board of directors, and the adoption of a constitution. He finally urged farmers to control stray animals and to continue to plant and protect trees to protect the environment from deforestation and soil degradation.