The All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Gombe chapter, has commended the Federal Government for distributing farm inputs to farmers in the state.
Alhaji Modibbo Sadiq, the State’s AFAN Chairman, who gave the commendation on the sidelines of the distribution of potato input to 600 farmers on Saturday in Gombe, stated that ten days ago, 150 rice farmers also received certified rice seeds, bags of assorted fertilisers, litres of soil amender, pesticide and herbicides from the Federal Government.
Sadiq, who said that farmers in the state were excited about the interventions of the Federal Government, noted that “inputs are now expensive, hence the free inputs will go a long way in reducing poverty among the farmers”.
On the potato input distributed to the 600 farmers, Sadiq said the input would help farmers to boost their productivity and improve “the nutritional content of meals, since the variety is rich in Vitamin A.’’
He added that his association was working with critical stakeholders to ensure the processing and marketing of potato, adding that this would further improve farmers’ incomes.
Sadiq further commended the officials of both the Federal and the state ministries of agriculture for ensuring transparency in the distribution of the inputs, to ensure that real farmers benefitted.
With the various interventions of the Federal Government in terms of inputs and trainings to farmers, the problem of food insecurity would be addressed in the state and the country at large, Sadiq stated.
One of the beneficiaries of the free potato inputs, Malam Abubakar Ibrahim, told NAN that the training that accompanied the distribution was beneficial, saying that the training had shown me “ I have been practicing the wrong agricultural methodology while cultivating the crop”.
While commending the Federal for the input, Ibrahim appealed for more trainings, especially in rural communities for more farmers to benefit.
“ For me, the training is wonderful because we have been farming traditionally, without knowledge of what is happening in modern farming.
“Today I learnt that some of the issues we have in poor harvests were as a result of poor agricultural practices and continuous use of old techniques. Another thing I also learnt is the issue of record keeping during farming.
“Our facilitators told us that keeping records will help us know what we invested and how to market our commodity, Ibrahim said”.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the 600 farmers were trained and given 12, 000 bundles of potato vines at the event.(NAN)
