Disina groundnut seed Hub: A game-changer for farmers in Bauchi State

For generations, the farmers of Disina, a thriving agricultural community in the Jamaare Valley of Bauchi State, Nigeria, have worked over the years to cultivate the fertile lands along the Bunga River. Their expertise has been in growing millet, sorghum, sesame, sugarcane, cowpea, and groundnut during the rainy season and tomatoes, peppers, and watermelons in the dry season under irrigation. This was to ensure a consistent stream of household income all year round. However, the reality was far less rewarding. Every season, farmers faced the painful cycle of price surge for their perishable crops at the start and end of the harvest and a plummet when the market gluts towards the middle of the season. With little bargaining power during the glut, farmers were often forced to sell at prices barely covering their production costs. The unpredictability of these returns pushed them to seek alternatives, leading to an agricultural breakthrough that would reshape the community’s production systems and business. That turning point came when the Centre for Dryland Agriculture (CDA) at Bayero University Kano, with support from the Accelerated Varietal Improvement of Cereals and Legumes in Africa (AVISA) project, introduced early maturing improved groundnut varieties to Disina. Recognizing the need for a more stable and profitable crop, the farmers embraced this opportunity. In the 2021 rainy season, 75 kilograms of three improved groundnut varieties were distributed to selected farmers to try in their fields. By the end of that season, the farmers had successfully produced 1.5 tons of high-quality groundnut seed, which was then redistributed among 50 farmers to experiment with dry-season groundnut production using irrigation.