Rose Ejembi, Makurdi
About 23,000 farmers in Benue State who were affected by the 2018 flood or conflicts are to benefit from the National Emergency Agricultural Intervention Fund.
The fund which is under the National Food Security Programme of the Federal Government and chaired by President Muhammadu Buhari covers 18 states of the federation.
Dr. Martins Ejike, deputy director of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), who led the team to Benue said the fund is one of the Federal Government’s intervention programme in the agricultural sector.
Ejike noted that the programme is to address two major issues of farmers affected by conflicts and those affected by the 2018 flood disaster.
“The people benefiting are those farmers who were affected by flood and conflict. We are here to implement the project and we will be attending to those that were enumerated earlier on.
“We were given a mandate to go and use the list that had been generated earlier on and handed over to us for implementation and we will be giving out baskets to affected farmers based on hectarage.”
Supervisor in charge of flood, Mr. Eugene Nyelong, stated that NEMA would collaborate with the state government and the state Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) in the disbursement of the funds.
While also lamenting the challenges faced by NEMA, especially in the area of coordinating the disbursement, Nyelong said the team was trying to tackle the challenge with the assistance of security personnel and the state government.
“We are collaborating with SEMA and the state government but the constraint we are facing is the coordination aspect. We have sensitised the people but anxiety is making the people not to be well organised. However, we are tackling all of that with the assistance of security agencies to identify those who are the real beneficiaries.”