By Chimezie Ezeani

Rural environment constitutes over ninety percent of agricultural activities in Nigeria and indeed elsewhere globally. This is apparently why governments and other stakeholders in farming and agriculture have seen the need to lay emphasis on the need to create access to the rural areas, if food security must be assured.

This narrative is the reason why the Federal Government of Nigeria initiated the Rural Access And Agriculture Marketing Project (RAAMP) as a successor to the Rural Access And Mobility Project (RAAMP 2) as a result of post harvest losses, caused by poor access to farms. It was estimated that Nigeria loses about eight point nine billion dollars yearly as a post harvest waste.

The project will be supported with financing from the World Bank, French Development Agency (AFD) and the African Development Bank (ADB) and will be guided by the Governments Rural Travel and Transport Policy (RTTP). This is important in improving rural mobility and easing the frustration of farmers who could hardly evacuate the farm produce because of poor access to farms. This lack of access has impoverished farmers and frustrated governments’ efforts in boosting agriculture.

RAAMP aims at holistically opening up and promoting the entire rural agricultural life, thereby not only boosting produce but also stemming rural-urban migration and consequently making life at the rural areas more interesting.

The lead agency for the Federal Government on RAAMP is the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, while the respective participating state governments State Project Implementation Units are domiciled in the various state Ministries of Works.

Anambra State is one of the selected seventeen states for the projects and necessary actions have been generated by the state government under the leadership of Governor Willie Obiano to ensure that, as usual, in various other sectors, the state will maintain its lead in the area of agriculture and rural development. Thus, the Governor gave fiat for the establishment of RAAMP in Anambra State in October 2017 and approved the appointment of a seasoned project manager, Engineer Joe Onyejekwe, as the State Project Coordinator.

In partnership with the African Development Bank (ADB), the state government is paying its share of the Counterpart Cash Contribution which is a pre-requisite for effective project implementation and show of commitment. The Anambra State RAAMP has, within the context of its enabling agency and the African Development Bank guidelines and guidance of the RAAMP National Office, Abuja, carried out prioritization studies.

The project team has been involved in series of missions, workshops, seminars, trainings and meetings organized by the World Bank, Federal Project Management Unit and the RAAMP National Office.

As a precondition for admission into RAAMP, Anambra State also carried out prioritization of rural farm roads, rural roadsides logistics hubs based on their importance in terms of giving small family farms access to storage facilities, drying shades, shelter for perishable products, micro-finance centers, high speed fiber-optic internet access at the Community Information Canter (ICT Centers), veterinary services and small processing plants operated by Small Scale Enterprises (SMEs).

Anambra State RAAMP has successfully carried out sensitization tours to fifteen local governments in order to interact with the selected communities within the prioritized road corridor. The purpose of the sensitization was to provide project beneficiaries with balanced information to assist them in understanding RAAMP, the opportunities, risks, solutions and also create a channel of effective communication for feedbacks from the people.

The stakeholders were also sensitized on the plan for the construction of some selected roads in the communities, operational policies, safeguards and grievances redress mechanism. The project, when fully operational, will build primary and secondary markets within the rehabilitated roads corridors, provide assistance to farmers to establish processing industries, storage facilities, pay adequate compensation when community property are affected during construction and promote Public Private Partnership in rural farm transportation and cottage industries among others. No doubt, the Rural Access And Agricultural Marketing Project (RAAMP), is another good news and feather in the desire and obvious determination of the Anambra State Government under the watch of Governor Willie Obiano.

Already, the Governor has, in addition to paying the counterpart cash contributions, provided the necessary logistics for a smooth take off, including Office accommodation, Transportation and the project monitoring team, headed by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Works. The design of the roads and other ancillary are in the offing and RAAMP is up for grabs in Anambra State.

Ndi Anambra, especially benefitting communities and other stakeholders are hereby enjoined to do the needful and embrace the intervention of RAAMP in due course as our dear state matches on progressively.