By Kola Adeyemi
Lokoja – The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has flagged off distribution of free fertilisers to farmers that lost their farmlands to the 2018 flood in Kogi.
Mr Oluwatope Ajayi, the agency’s Team Leader for Emergency Agricultural Intervention Fund (EAIF) in the state, made this known on Monday in Lokoja.
According to Ajayi, the distribution is being carried out under the Federal Government’s Emergency Agricultural Intervention Fund.
The exercise was flagged off in Kogi Local Government area of the state by the Commissioner for Agriculture, Mr Kehinde Oloruntoba.
Ajayi noted that 16,059 farmers spread across nine Local Government Areas of the state would benefit from the gesture.
He said that each of the farmers would receive between five to nine bags of NPK fertilisers, depending on the acreage of their farms.
The team leader, however, said that only rice, cassava, maize, yam, sesame seeds, soya beans, would benefit from the free fertiliser distribution scheme.
“This is a follow-up to the seeds, agrochemicals, sprayers and other agricultural inputs distributed earlier free of charge to the farmers,’’ Ajayi said in a statement.
He said that the intervention by NEMA was in line with the directive of the National Food Security Council, under the Chairmanship of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Ajayi said the distribution exercise would cover the affected farmers that had been profiled in eight other Local Governments Areas of Ibaji, Lokoja, Idah, Bassa, Ajaokuta, Ofu, Igalamela and Omala.