The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security has warned Benue State farmers against selling farm inputs given to them to enhance their crop production and in turn improve their yields.
Representative of the Ministry, Mary Boniface, who stated this during the distribution of fertilizers and herbicides to 33 selected yam farmers mostly women and youths across the 23 local government areas of Benue State urged them to make judicious use of the inputs to give more credence to the State to maintain its status as the food basket of the nation.
“I am urging you farmers not to sell these inputs given to you by the federal government because of the economic realities we find ourselves in today, apply it on your farms to enhance productivity,” she said.
In a remark, the programme manager, Benue Agriculture and Rural Development Agency (BNARDA) Dooshima Zaki who commended the federal government for coming to the aid of Benue farmers amid need to diversify from oil to agriculture, said if Benue State is adequately taking care of, in terms of farm inputs, Nigeria will have no course to worry about food security.
“We are calling on farmers to form and register their cooperative societies because the government of the day is only interested in working with farmers who are in registered cooperatives so that whatever comes either from the federal government or state will be shared to them through their executives and it will also be easy for them to get soft loans for their farming activities,” Zaki said.
Some of the benefitting farmers who spoke to our correspondent including Comfort Anongo and Francis lauded the federal government for keeping to its promise of distributing farm inputs to yam farmers after their training, they also appealed for timely provision of the inputs next cropping season.
“We are really surprised, we were trained by the federal government with a promise to give us starter packs and this has happened, we are grateful and we will use this judiciously for the growth and enhancement of our production,” they added.
