Visit from the Dutch Deputy Ambassador to Nigeria
This week, our Nigeria team welcomed a delegation from the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Abuja to two vegetable production learning farms—the HortiNigeria learning site at Sa’adatu Rimi College of Education, in Kano state, and the learning site at Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria, in Kaduna state.
Jurgen Bartelink, Dutch Deputy Ambassador to Nigeria, was joined by embassy colleagues Temitayo Akinbiyi, Senior Policy Officer for Education, and Foluso Adejoro, Policy Advisor on Food Security and Climate, as well as partners from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) Abuja and Mohammed Salasi Idris, the Program Director for HortiNigeria. (Funded by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Nigeria, the HortiNigeria program is implemented through a consortium led by the International Fertilizer Development Center that includes East-West Seed Knowledge Transfer Foundation, Wageningen University & Research, and KIT Royal Tropical Institute.)
Starting his visit in Kano, Deputy Ambassador Bartelink was especially impressed with EWS-KT’s approach of training farmers within their communities, establishing learning sites in government-owned institutions, and working closely with gatekeepers. “This approach is very sustainable and should be emulated by other intervention programs,” he said. He appreciated the practical techniques he saw at the HortiNigeria learning site and took the opportunity to talk with some of the learning site interns, as well as trainees from the national Youth in Agribusiness (YAS) project.
The next day, the embassy delegation toured the ABU learning site in Kaduna state, alongside Prof. Salisu Bakura Abdu, Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture at ABU, and his assistant, Dr. Oladimeji Yusuf. The Netherlands embassy delegation was also welcomed at the site by EWS-KT staff and by students from ABU and Barewa College.
The visitors were taken to the different sections of the learning site, including the seedling area, the crop production area, and the food storage technologies area, which includes a zero energy cooling chamber (ZECC). Ruth Ardzard, EWS-KT Knowledge Transfer Manager for Nigeria, and our Team Leads took time to explain everything that the visitors were seeing, and local farmers who were present also spoke with the delegation about how they benefit from the learning farm.
“It’s a very active site where you see youth, knowledge, and development coming together,” said Deputy Ambassador Bartelink, who also applauded its role in helping farmers to “get a better production in the future and to support food security.”
EWS-KT has long-standing ties to the Netherlands government—in addition to the embassy’s support of HortiNigeria, the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) is co-funding the DELIVER Nigeria project—and we were excited to introduce Deputy Ambassador Bartelink to our work.
