From Paul Orude, Bauchi
The Bauchi State Government has engaged the services of International Agricultural Consultancy Farms for mechanised farming to transform the economic fortunes of the state.
The project would ensure the development of 200,000 hectares of land for mechanised farming across the state.
Governor Bala Mohammed disclosed this on Saturday while flagging off the 2022 farming season at Nabordo, Toro Local Government Area of the state.
Mohammed said the programme would stop the over-dependence by the state on monthly allocation from the federal government.
“This is a new project we are conceptualising with the federal government and the Central Bank of Nigeria,” he said.
“We are going to access this money, about N50 billion from the CBN to make sure that we participate in the programme, targeted at all youths as beneficiaries
“The 1000 youths we have already trained would be the pilot scheme for the beneficiaries
“We have gone through the Bauchi Investment Company, BIC because the Programme is going to be a full business enterprise in order to improve the economic capabilities
“The ministry of agriculture and BIC have been directed to put all hands on deck for the successful implementation of the programme which will be spread across the three senatorial districts of the state.
“We have already delineated the land and we are coming up with a concept with the aid of the consultants so that it will not be something like political patronage.
“Definitely it is going to be business and the idea is to put ourselves on sound economic footage and at the end of the day, we will exit from an excruciating non-working federation account where we have been getting nearly nothing.
“We want to be economically independent and agriculturally very sound. Indeed we want to be the harbinger and the place where agriculture is going to be named as the mainstay.”
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Governor Mohammed also revealed that the state government has signed an MOU with the TETFUND Centre for Excellence of the Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi, in a move to educate young people of the state on new farming techniques and skills
“Our dear state is blessed with human and land resources. It is therefore imperative for us to harness this potential for ultimatum Agricultural production for economic prosperity,” he said.
He assured that his administration would continue to accord agriculture the priority it deserves.
He lamented that the Ukraine-Russia war has impacted on fertilizer for farmers in the state.
“Ukraine is the largest producer of the ammonium material needed for the production of fertilizer.
“The current war between Ukraine and Russia has made the raw materials for production of fertilizer almost impossible,” he said.
“It has lowered the supply with attendant high hike worldwide in fertilizer.
“Despite the competition for the supply of ammonia for our country, the government is highly committed to providing the commodity to Farmers at a reasonable cost.
“I am aware that the price of fertilizer is high and unacceptable.
“NPK is selling for 25,000 and N30,000. This is unacceptable and we must reverse it”
He announced the sale of the commodity at a subsided rate and warned farmers against diverting the products.
“In our relentless efforts to train teeming youth and farmers on good agricultural practices, we have spent N75 million to provide a befitting accommodation for the state branch of the Agricultural Rural Management Training Institute ARMTI,” he said.
“ARMTI has only one branch at its headquarters in Ilorin. The federal government recently decided to open six more branches based on geopolitical zone and consequent upon which we struggled to get the northwest branch established in Bauchi.”