Off-season vegetables: FATA farmers complete training

Thirty agriculture entrepreneurs from Southern Fata awarded certificates for completing training.

PESHAWAR: The Fata Development Programme - Livelihood Development (FDP-LD), awarded certificates to 30 agriculture entrepreneurs from Southern Fata who completed training in off-season vegetable growing in a ceremony held at a local hotel here in Peshawar.

The training is part of an Rs11 million “off-season vegetable production programme”, being delivered by FDP-LD in partnership with the Fata Secretariat’s Directorate of Agriculture Extension in South Waziristan, North Waziristan and Kurram Agencies.

The programme includes the provision of training and enterprise development grants to 30 individual agricultural entrepreneurs from Fata and the installation of 150 walk-in tunnels for off-season growing. The off-season vegetable programme is one amongst several Programmes designed and undertaken by the FDP-LD to improve the livelihood of people in Fata through the development of agricultural value chains.

A senior official of the FDP-LD’s agriculture component, in his ceremonial address, said that one aim of the off-season vegetable programme was to increase the number of skilled farmers in the area and to provide a focus for the local agriculture industry which remained the primary source of livelihood for a majority of households in Fata. “We expect that our disbursements for these 30 ambitious entrepreneurs will provide direct employment opportunities for at least 120 people besides strengthening the local horticulture value chain and expanding the outreach of modern farming techniques to overcome seasonal limitations”, he added.

The horticulture training sessions were arranged in Peshawar and Dera Ismail Khan to impart vegetable growers with technical know-how of contemporary off-season farming techniques. The trainees were also facilitated with field visits to farms already furnished with walk-in tunnels at Charsadda, Mansehra, Abbottabad and Islamabad.

With the training now complete, each farmer who participated would receive five walk-in tunnels to commercialise the output. Briefing on the impact of growing off-season vegetable trends, the official informed that these walk-in tunnels would impact more than 60 kanals of farming land, significantly increase profits for vegetable growers and ensure a supply of quality vegetables to the local population.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 5^th, 2010.