ARMTI To Boost Community-Based Farming

The Agricultural and Ru
ral Management Training Institute (ARMTI), Ilorin, Kwara State, is determined to help communities increase economic opportunities for local farmers and related businesses.
According to a press release made available to The Tide by Agro Nigeria recently, its Acting Executive Director, Mr Anthony Njoku, who spoke at the opening ceremony of the institutes training workshop on Cassava Commodity Value Chain Development for participating communities in its Village Alive Development Initiative (VADI)said the programme is an action-research project of ARMTI to selected rural communities in the areas of operation.
Njoku said the initiative was further aimed at creating a sustainable and self-reliant community-based organisation for rural dwellers to initiate and implement programmes that would improve their standard of living and social status and also reduce their levels of poverty.
He said it would also provide field practice and complement for ARMTI courses while also serving as Corporate social Responsibility (CSR), for the institute
The ARMTI boss disclosed that it has just acquired and installed two sets of cassava processing equipment in two of the participating communities.
“Now we are conducting this four-day training workshop on cassava commodity value chain development for all our participating communities”.
The institute, Njoku explained, has embarked on a different locally driven approach to help people access healthy local food and support new businesses in the village that need investment.
With technical assistance through the scheme, he said participants are taking innovative approaches to common challenges, like launching business incubators to support food entrepreneurs.
According to him, so far, more than N10,000,000 (Ten million) naira has been spent on eight rural communities in Kwara State  under VALDI.
The money was distributed by a commercial bank to villagers, forming contributory groups under a revolving loan arrangement.