The British American Tobacco Nigeria Foundation (BATNF) is set to invest over N2 billion to support small holder farmers across the 36 States in the federation.
According to the foundation, the move is aimed at improving the lives of smallholder farmers and enabling them to move from subsistence to commercial agriculture to boost food production in the country.
A member of the foundation’s technical committee, Mr. Fatai Afolabi, on the sidelines of the West Africa Innovation Awards in Lagos recently, said the BATN foundation has chosen passion for supporting and empowering rural smallholder farmers in the country to contribute to food productivity in order to realize food security via sustainable commercial agriculture.
The General Manager of the BATNF, Ms. Ololade Johnson, expressed how passionate the BAT Nigeria foundation is about rural farming, noting that its customers are rural farmers with core mandate to help small holder farmers earn a sustainable income.
“We have been able to do this successfully in 19 years since inception, improving the lives of farmers and enabling them to grow from subsistence to commercial agriculture. We are aware that people in the rural community are often ignored. It is our commitment and priority to ensure that they grow with the rest of the world,” she said.
One of the BATNF landmark projects is the farmers for the future it introduced in 2019 to finance agricultural enterprises of young graduates particularly the farmers for the future (F4F) project. This is in addition to seed funding (input supply) given to rural farmers to cultivate their food crops and move them from subsistence to commercial agriculture.
To date, the BAT Nigeria Foundation has implemented over 240 projects in 36 states of the Federation including the FCT, impacting over 1.2 million beneficiaries.
