Exclusive: Despite Huge Funding, Kaduna Wheat Farming Suffers Setback

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By;  SANI ALIYU, Zaria

The Kaduna State wheat farming programme has suffered a technical knock down, despite huge amount of money projected on the programme which is aimed at empowering youth and unemployed graduates in the state by Governor Nasir Ahmed el-Rufa’i at Ruwan Sanyi in Kubau Local Government.

From the inception of the programme some signs have manifested on the possible failure of the much supported programme, first when the training programme on the wheat farming began at the Murtala Sqaure Kaduna, on the 26 to 28 October 2016, the token transport money of N2,000.00 approved by the governor was not paid to any farmer that attended the training without considering the distance the farmers came from.

Kaduna State Government had excavated 600 hectares of virgin land for the wheat farming, but unfortunately, even 50 hectares was not utilized because of the way and manner, the person saddled with the responsibility of the programme was not an agronomist, neither a professional farmer only to discovered that he is a banker by profession.

On visiting the site at Ruwan Sanyi in Kubau Local Government, even the few farmers that were lucky to have the opportunity of being selected have suffered enough at the end they ran away from the site completely, because they discovered that there was no seriousness on the project on the part of the handlers.

Part of the unseriousness was that, even water has no access to the farmland because the water pumping machines had failed to function for the water to be supplied to the farmers and the timing of the cropping is very late. To crown it all, the minimum wage for the farmers has not been paid to them which makes it difficult for them to be at the site.

Despite all the huddles and failures, yet innocently some staff of KADP Maigana Zone were arrested  after invading their office in Maigana on Wednesday 19th April 2017 by the men of the Operation Yaki and took them to Kaduna for questioning over a crime they may not have not committed.

Investigations revealed that their arrest is connected with the ungodly petition written by the person at the helm of the wheat farming programme as a cover up on his failure despite all the confidence on him to deliver.

To say it all, if government really wants to engage itself in wheat farming, it is very necessary to allow the Ministry of Agriculture and KADP to handle the project because they have the professionals and technical staff on the ground as against allowing the wheat farming to go on inside government house for better results.

Now it is left for the government to start planning for the next dry season farming on wheat for better results to be achieved.

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