How contract spraying changed my life-Nasalla’ Story

Nasalla a 35 years old farmer and father of 7 children from Rugar Rafi community of Darazo local government area (LGA) of Bauchi state, depends on menial jobs as a means of livelihood. Although he continued to cultivate a small portion of land to support his family feeding, the cost of investment on farming has so much limited his ability to farm effectively. In his words “Before coming of the livelihood and nutrition empowerment (LINE) project my family hardly eat two square meals in a day, life has been difficult for us. There is no significant income from all the menial job I do neither am I able to improve my farm output”. Also, poor knowledge of applying herbicides and other chemical products has cost many members of the communities in Darazo their investment in farming. According to Nasalla, “My community people have to go to neighboring village to get a sprayer who will come and apply herbicide to their farm which waste time and resources and sometime destroy the whole farm due to poor application”.
The Women Empowerment Initiative (WEIN) and Oxfam Nigeria partnership Livelihood and Nutrition (LINE) project, which is funded by Global Affairs Canada, identified people like Nasalla in their communities and trained them on professional application of herbicide and other farm input chemicals, then empower them with the complete kits for the job. Aimed at addressing the cause of the lost in farm investment, the project identified people from disadvantage communities like Nasalla’s community and trained them.
Today, people in Rugar Rafi community now have easy access to a trained herbicide applicator and for Nasalla, the training was worth more than just additional support to their farming investment, but an economic empowerment thus “Through the intervention of this project, the long-time challenges with means of livelihood and feeding of my family has greatly improved because I now have a source of income that compliment my other menial job. Sometimes I spend the whole day moving from one person’s farm to another”. He is now investing more into his subsistence farming while improving the living condition of his family.
Nasalla is helping farmer in his community to improve the quality of the produce and increase return on their investment which gives him joy and also increases access to financial resource for him. Beyond helping the community, herbicide application has further added value to his life and empowered him economically especially as he is engaged both during raining season and dry season farming as well. He is happy that he is also training others as he aptly noted “I have trained another sprayer in our community and right now, we are planning on buying another knapsack sprayer”.