From Okwe Obi, Abuja
The All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), has begun stock taking of farmers affected by flood in Kogi, Anambra, Delta Rivers, Bayelsa and other parts of the country.
AFAN’s President, Farouk Rabiu Mudi, who disclosed this at a press briefing yesterday in Abuja, said the association has over 80 million farmers with about 2 million registered members.
He raised concern that next year’s rainy season would be devastating compared to what citizens are currently witnessing.
Aside calling on government to be proactive in tackling the problem, he tasked it to provide palliatives for them so as to citizens will not go hungry next year.
According to him, “I know what the farmers are feeling. You know that the way we have seen it this year, it has never happened like this before.
“And we have been calling on government even before I became the president that flood makes the farmers to stay in one place.
“Once we make harvest in the dry season and invest during the rainy season, everything goes away.
“There are other things that are preventable. This kind of flood I can tell you is preventable. We, the farmers, are handicap.
“We cannot do anything, only the federal government can assist. In our own level we are taking the statistics of the affected farmers.
“We will forward it to the federal government to tell us the kind of intervention they want to bring to the farmers affected.
“And what they are going to do to stop the occurrence of flood. Look at the one what happened this year. The one that will happen next year, only God knows because it is in the increase because of the de-silting of dams and waterways year in year out.
“We need to de-stilt the dam to have water so as to use it during the dry season.