Maize farmers urge FG to compensate farms affected by armyworm


Maize farmers in the country have appealed to the Federal Government to consider compensating farmers whose farms had been ravaged by the current outbreak of armyworm disease.
Dr Edwin Uche, President, Maize Growers, Processors and Marketers Association of Nigeria, made the appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Abuja.
Armyworms are caterpillar pests of grass pastures and cereal crops; they are the only caterpillars that growers are likely to encounter in cereal crops.
The pest mostly feed on leaves, but under certain circumstances would feed on the seed stem, resulting in head loss.
Uche said such compensation was necessary to encourage farmers and to boost maize production, especially as most of them had lost billions of naira to the decease.
“If a farmer borrowed money from a bank and goes through challenges to cultivate and at the end of the day he loses his produce to environmental or social hazard.
“Such a farmer should be compensated adequately to motivate and encourage him to continue in the practice.
“This is what we are advocating, considering the outbreak of this disease and other challenges that farmers are being faced with,’’ he said.
Uche explained that maize farmers were also faced with inherent challenges such as poor agronomic practices, lack of access to right seeds and fertiliser among others.
He said the association was currently carrying out extensive capacity building workshop for farmers on global best practices of maize cultivation.
He added that the association was planning a national maize conference expected to come up in August 2017, where stakeholders would proffer ways of improving maize cultivation.
This, he said, was especially so considering the importance of maize to brewery industry, confectionary and other industrial product.
“We want to look at maize as a key component to drive poverty reduction, job creation and improve agriculture in the country.

He, however, advised maize farmers to work in collaboration with officials of the Agricultural Development Programme (ADPs) in their various states to get new development and information on how to boost their production.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tomato disease outbreak: Institute appeals for research funding

The National Horticultural Research Institute, Ibadan, has appealed for funding to carry out research and create awareness on the tuta absoluta pest on tomatoes. The Institute’s Head of Vegetable Programme, Dr Olagorite Adetula, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibadan on Friday that there was an urgent need to tackle the problem to save the economy. Adetula said the institute needed money to do surveillance survey of the pest/damage, ascertain the impact of the damage and proffer solution for eradicating the pest. She appealed to the Federal Government to help the institute get pheromones to lure and trap the pests and distribute to farmers. ``Spraying insecticides is not the best, the pest has high production rate, some of them can escape while spraying it and they will be resistant to the insecticide thereby causing us more cost. ``The pheromones can be used for six to eight weeks before changing it, it is very effective, the pest has short life cycle, wit...
Read more

10,000 women farmers to be engaged in ECOWAS rice project – official

Image
 Mr Richard Olafare, the President, Seed Entrepreneurs Association of Nigeria (SEEDAN) says 10,000 women will be engaged in the recently inaugurated Rice Seed Up-Scaling Project. This is contained in a presentation on the project made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Friday. Olafare said 8,000 youths would also be engaged in the scaling project. According to him, the number of women and youths represented 50 per cent and 40 per cent respectively of the 20,000 farmers that will participate in the project. NAN reports that the project is an initiative of the West Africa Seed Programme (WASP) in support of the ECOWAS Rice Offensive Programme that was inaugurated in 2014. Among other objectives, it is targeting the production of 60,000 metric tonnes of paddy rice for Nigeria by December 2017, using 1,200 certified seeds. The project is being implemented by SEEDAN in collaboration with the West and Central Africa Council for Agricultura...
Read more

Monsanto Nigeria Launches 3 Conventional Maize Hybrids

Maize farmers across Nigeria now have 3 high yielding conventional maize hybrids to choose from the DEKALB ® brand as Monsanto Agriculture Nigeria Limited launches 3 conventional maize hybrids. The launch held in Abuja on Tuesday May 17 2016 had in attendance farmers, development partners, government regulatory bodies and other stakeholders from both the private and public sectors of the economy. The launch of these hybrid seeds follows their registration by the National Committee on Naming, Registration and Release of Crop Varieties, Livestock Breeds and Fisheries in February 2016. The white maize hybrid, DK234 alongside the 2 yellow maize hybrids, DK920 and DK818 obtained registration approval for use in Nigeria after testing across various agro ecological zones on multi-location farms. The white maize hybrid DK234 with yield potential of 13 tonnes per hectare is well adapted for the Southern and Northern Guinea Savanna ecologies and shows tolerance to Maize Streak Virus, ...
Read more