ABUJA – As part of efforts to empower rural farmers across the country, no fewer than 230,000 of them will benefit from the distribution of free fertiliser.
The First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, made this known during the official inauguration of the Agricultural Empowerment Programme for Rural Farmers across the country in Abuja on Thursday.
Jonathan said that the free fertiliser distribution was part of efforts of the President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration to improve the lives of people in the rural areas.
She assured the beneficiaries that they would get the fertiliser directly as the distribution was being done in a way to remove the middlemen.
“Today’s event is thus designed to bring quick gains in order to rapidly improve the lives of our people who live in the rural areas.
“About 230,000 bags of fertiliser are being distributed across the states of the Federation.
“What you see here is only symbolic as distribution is already being done in phases using the logistics network of the Cellulant Group that removes middlemen and ensures these bags of fertilisers reach the intended beneficiaries.’’
She commended the farmers for their contribution to the growth and ongoing improvement of the country’s economy, mainly driven by the agriculture sector.
According to her, the recognition by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, affirming that Nigeria has met the hunger target ahead of the 2015 deadline, was also premised on the outputs of produce from the agriculture sector.
“The poor farmers you see here today made possible the widely celebrated improvement in the Gross Domestic Product, as estimated by our National Bureau of Statistics and the World Bank.
“Dr Precious Gbeneol, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on MDGs, said this intervention was expected to help improve farm yields, enhance food security and change the economic landscape of rural communities.
Gbeneol said that the MDGs office in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture had implemented high impact interventions at the grassroots.
She said the collaboration was necessary as it had been established that the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger was central in the efforts to attain all the other MDGs.
Gbeneol said the MDGs office was implementing an Innovative Conditional Cash Transfer Scheme which adopted a multi-faceted approach in its engagement with the issues of hunger and poverty reduction.
“This Scheme engages low income households across the states of the federation with the provision of the sum of N100, 000 as seed grant to start up an agricultural enterprise as an exit strategy from the Scheme.
“The condition for the release of this sum is the completion of a three-month training in an agricultural business.‘’
She also added that the MDGs Conditional Grants Scheme was funding agricultural cooperatives in Local Government Areas across the country.
According to her, the aim of this intervention is to create capacity at the local government level to maximize the productive capacity of local cooperatives, in order to augment the interventions by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Inher speech, the FCT Minister of State, Ms. Olajumoke Akinjide, said that Nigeria had met MDG Goal 1 which seeks to improve food security.
Akinjide said that of the eight MDGs, agriculture remained the foundation for the attainment of most of them.
“Agriculture enables us to harness our water resources, contributes immensely to the prevention and reduction of diseases and maternal and infant mortality as well as unemployment and poverty. [eap_ad_1] “We depend on agriculture to provide good nutrition, economic empowerment and improvement in household income. especially among the rural populace.’’
She noted that under the President’s Agricultural Transformation Agenda, no fewer than 100,000 farmers in the FCT benefited from the Growth Enhancement Support Scheme in 2013 rain-fed farming season.
Akinjide added that in June, 108, 840 farmers in the FCT were given two bags of fertilizer each at 50 per cent subsidy, including 10kg of maize and 12.5kg of rice each at 90 per cent subsidy.
Jamila Yakubu, speaking on behalf of the beneficiaries, thanked the Jonathan administration for its support to farmers in the rural areaa.
Yakubu said with the intervention of the First Lady and the MDGs Office, access to fertiliser had been made easier. (NAN)
[eap_ad_4]
