Engro, DFAT empower small farmers

KARACHI: Engro Fertilizers Limited, Engro Foundation, and the Department of Foreign Aid and Trade (DFAT), Government of Australia have successfully trained more than 4,000 smallholder farmers so far, including 600 women, on quality certified seed use over two years, a statement said on Tuesday.

Additionally, the statement said, the project had developed approximately 290 enterprising smallholder farmers, 124 among whom were women, to produce their own quality farm-saved seed for further exchange, distribution and selling among the fellow farmers in nearby villages.

Co-funded by Engro Fertilizers Limited and the Department of Foreign Aid and Trade (DFAT), Government of Australia, Partnerships and Value Expansion in Seeds Value Chain (PAVE) project aims to build capacities of smallholder farmers to become high-skilled seed multipliers and become part of seed supply chain, as well as using certified seed in their regular cropping to earn higher incomes, it added.

For this successful project, Engro Fertilizers Limited and Engro Foundation have also received an international award at the Asia Responsible Enterprise Awards (AREA) 2019 in Taipei, Taiwan.