Provide Real Database For Farmers Or Forget Subsidy, Agric Minister Tells States Govt

The Minister of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, (FMAFS), Abukakar Kyari has asked state government to provide a verifiable farmer database to enable the governments to dispense subsidies to genuine farmers.

Kyari said the database will help the ministry meet the target of cultivating crops on 500,000 hectares of farmlands across states in the country

The Minister disclosed this in Abuja when he was visited by the Governor of Katsina State, Dikko Radda, at the FMAFS headquarters.

Kyari said, “It is no gain saying that we are out to achieve Mr President’s target of cultivating 500,000 hectares of arable land this year.

“We are committed to doing that. First things first, we have to collaborate with the states and local governments to come up with a genuine and verifiable farmers’ list.

“This is very important because we have to know who the real farmers are, and by so doing, we have to collaborate with the local authorities and the state governments so that they can buy into our programme and we also succeed in what we set to do.”

“Some of the things we have discussed earlier such as the land tripping issues, lack of verifiable data, inability of farmers to come up with their portions because of the precarious economic situation that we find ourselves, I think when we collaborate with the front line states, we will come up with a very successful programme.”

“We are going to set up, both from our side and from the states’ side, a task force to make sure that this programme is successful.

Kyari also noted that Katsina State had commenced some programmes and is also one of the front-line states in the quest to achieve the food security agenda of Mr President.

Citing other states targeted by Mr President in the dry season for the cultivation of wheat, rice maize and cassava, he said the states include Niger, Jigawa, Kano, Kebbi, Zamfara and Sokoto.

Responding, Radda said 90 per cent of citizens in his state were farmers, so there’s a need to comply with the federal government directive.

“We all know the dangers of an idle mind, which is why we are making an effort to engage them through the provision of inputs for dry season farming in Katsina State,” Radda stated.