Bauchi- The Bauchi State Agricultural Development Authority (BSADP), said it would add wheat, green maize, vegetables and spices to its dry season rice farming in 2014.
Dr Illiyasu Gital, Programme Manager, BSADP, made this known during interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Bauchi on Sunday.
“We had a pilot scheme last year and from that, we are expanding this year, you see, more farmers were involved in the irrigated agriculture.
“We want to double or triple the number of farmers this year, and we are going to also double or triple the agricultural produce of the farmers.
“We will do that through giving the farmers the right technologies, the right inputs, and that is what the State Government is doing right now’’, Gital added.
The manager said that the authority was going to introduce value addition, preservation, as well as provide market information so that farmers could break even.
He stated that no fewer than 2,000 farmers participated in Dry Season Rice Production at Gadau Pilot Scheme in 2013.
Gital explained that about 200 families of the figure produced an average of 50 bags of rice each.
He said that the authority was not able to obtain the actual total yield because some farmers sold their produce before the statistics were taken.
“Definitely, there are some farmers that got 200 bags each. But the average was 50 bags per farmer, so if you combine it you will see that the tonnage was very high.
“Gadau was not the only pilot project, we have three other locations and we are going into rice production during the dry season in the whole of the state’’, he added. (NAN)
