Karina Agriculture, source: Wikimedia commons
You can not talk about agriculture in Nigeria without mentioning the name "fadama". Agriculturalists in Nigeria are familiar with the name "fadama" while some of us may be pondering on the name. Could it be an acronym? Well, herein lies the answer. Fadama is a name from the Hausa language in Nigeria. It literally means "fertile land which is capable of being irrigated".
In Nigeria system of agriculture fadama means the application of irrigation in the cultivation and farming of crops. So briefly, we will look at lowlands and fadama agriculture.
Lowlands are flat areas with rivers and streams transversing the length and breadth of the farmlands. The river draining in these lowland areas tend to flood the valleys during the wet season. In the dry season, the water recede leaving coats and layers of fertile alluvial soils that can be used for agriculture. Fadama therefore, is all flooded areas. It includes all irrigable lands, floods plains, low lying areas and other parts underlying shallow aquifers. These lands are suitable for irrigation purposes. Fadama is an Hausa name and found along most of the Nigerian rivers and river valleys. These farm lands are flooded seasonally and also common in areas with high water table (HWT). The lands are wet for the large part of the year. The lands are rich and fertile and commonly used for dry season farming. Fadama projects provides natural resources for the agriculturalists like farmers, fishermen, hunters and pastoralists.Fadama agriculture is the production of crop from the flooded valleys or areas as well as fertile alluvial soil deposits found along rivers and streams. Some of the lowlands areas that sustain fadama agriculture in Nigeria include the Sokoto plains, Niger-Benue trough, Chad basin, lowlands of Western and Easter regions presently, almost all the states in Nigeria have fadama areas where fadama agriculture can be practiced.
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Reference
[1] Fadama project III-Worldbank
[2] Meaning of Fadama
[3] science alert -fadama project
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