102,000 farmers from Zamfara to benefit from FG’s support scheme — Official




About 102, 000 irrigation farmers in Zamfara are to receive fertiliser and other inputs at subsidised rates under the Federal Government’s 2017 dry season Growth Enhancement Support Scheme (GESS).
Alhaji Musa Raji, the Director, Federal Ministry of Agriculture in the state, disclosed this in Talata-Mafara while receiving the House of Representatives’ Committee on Agriculture, who visited its GESS redemption distribution centres.
The House Committee on Agriculture visited the state to monitor the activities of the GESS for the 2017 dry season farming in the state.
Raji said that out of the 102,000 farmers that would benefit from the scheme, 90,000 farmers are rice farmers while 8,000 and 4,000 are wheat and maize farmers respectively.
According to him, all the farmers are registered under the scheme across the 51 GESS redemption centres in the state.
He said that beneficiaries were now receiving notifications of their allocations through text messages (E-wallet).
“You can see the turnout of farmers collecting their allocated inputs. Depending on their crops, they receive both NPK and Urea fertiliser, inorganic fertiliser, micro-nutrients and seeds,’’ the director said.
In his remarks, Alhaji Manir Dan-Agundi, the Committee’s Vice-Chairman and leader of the team, said it was in the state as part of its oversight functions.
“The issue of farming is one of the major areas we are giving priority to in the National Assembly, considering the large number of farmers we have in this country.
“It is always our hope that government will come out with various programmes to support and assist our teeming farmers such agricultural inputs and machinery at subsidised rates to enhance production.
“We are happy with the large turnout of farmers we have seen in most of the centres we visited. This is an indication that our people are interested in farming,’’ Dan-Agundi said.
He commended the ministry of agriculture officials and other stakeholders over the new measures taken to enhance the scheme.

He urged the farmers to take part in the scheme and to utilise the inputs judiciously so as to achieve government’s objective for setting up the scheme.  

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