ABUJA – The International Centre for Soil and Agricultural Development (IFDC) has extended by two weeks the period for the redemption of farm inputs (fertilisers and seeds) by farmers.
Miss Patience Adamade, the Zonal Supervisor for Bwari and Abuja Municipal Area Council, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Abuja.
Adamade said that the extension was to enable more farmers to benefit from the programme which started on May 19, 2014.
“We were meant to run the programme for eight weeks in total, but the turnout of farmers coming to redeem their farm inputs was on the low side, so we decided to extend the period. [eap_ad_2] “Due to one issue or the other, some farmers could not come to redeem their inputs; so we decided to run it for 10 weeks; we added two more weeks to the give the farmers time to get their farm inputs.
“The programme is currently ongoing and we would close at the end of this week’’, she said.
NAN recalls that IFDC has registered 110,000 farmers of which and 80,000 had redeemed their farm inputs.
According to her, the objective of the programme is to break the chain of seed adulteration.
She expressed regret over the high percentage of farmers who engaged in the consumption of seedlings meant for planting, stressing that such seeds were dangerous to health as were treated with chemicals.
According to her, a sensitisation programme on the dangers of consuming seeds is ongoing to create awareness on the risk in consuming these seeds. (NAN)[eap_ad_3]
