Abdulrazaq Mungadi, Gombe
Farmers in Gombe state have been told to subscribe to the use of locally sourced organic fertilizers and other farm inputs to produce more and healthier farm produce for the country. The call was made by Mr. Daniel Paul Madaki, Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) officer Gombe State office of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD).
Mr. Paul stated this at a 1-day stakeholders consultative meeting on 2021 Agriculture budget organized by Hope Foundation for the Lonely in collaboration with Actionaid Nigeria for Smallholder’s Women Farmers Organization Gombe State (SWOFON). He said for the country to attain its potentials in food security farmers at all level have to adopt the use of organic fertilizers.
“Our organic fertilizers are good for your farms and the use of organic inputs could means producing healthier farm produce while ensuring more result in our farmers and also preserving our soil,” the M&E officer said.
In a communique issued after the meeting SWOFON tasked the Federal and the State governments on employing agricultural extension officers to train smallholder’s women farmers on the proper use of Agro-chemicals and other Agricultural techniques.
While urging the government of Gombe state to ensure the implementation of budgetary allocation for smallholder’s women farmers in the state the group equally canvased for easy access to credit facilities for women farmers across the state.
“The state government should increase the budgetary allocation of the smallholder’s women farmers’ in 2021 to N50 million,” the group stated that is even the state government assured of having the farmers and agricultural program at heart.
Represented by Yunusa Mele the overseeing Director Agricultural Services (DAS) of the State Ministry of Agriculture the Commissioner of Agriculture Mohammed Magaji Gettado, disclosed that the government has a robust plan for the agricultural sector. He said: “the timely provision of fertilizers to our farmers is a testimony”.
However, he revealed that the economic challenges occasioned by the Corona-virus (COVID-19) pandemic is posing a threat to some agricultural planned projects. He said: “Many of our memos are before the governor and have not been approved due to the economic situation occasioned by COVID-19”.