By; MOHAMMED KAWU, Bauchi
Bauchi State Government has said that it has engaged the services of an International Agricultural Consultancy Firm, known as Techgen Agro Consultants Limited for the development of 200,000 hectares of land for mechanized farming across the state.
Governor Bala Mohammed said that the programme entailed a N50 billion Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) loan for Accelerated Agricultural Development Scheme (AADS) specifically targeted at all the youth in the state as the beneficiaries.
Mohammed was speaking at the weekend, while flagging off 2022 farming season and fertilizer sales at Nabordo village in Toro LGA where stressed the need for the state to properly harness both human and land resources Bauchi is blessed with for optimum agricultural production for economic prosperity.
The Governor recalled that the state has already trained 1,000 youth in crop production, livestock, fisheries and poultry who will be the pioneer beneficiaries of the programme, explained that the scheme fund would be sourced through Bauchi Investment Company (BIC).
He explained that the programme is going to be a full business enterprise aimed at increasing the economic capacities of state farmers, as the Ministry of Agriculture and Bauchi Investment Company have also been directed to ensure the successful implementation of the programme.
Mohammed said that his administration is fully committed to the development of the livestock sub-sector and appropriate measures have been taken to ensure the breeding of healthy livestock, while approval has been given for the release of N44 Million for the annual livestock vaccination for the year 2022.
He disclosed that an ultra-modern specialist veterinary clinic would be constructed at Ran Gate in Bauchi, while in order to improve and modernize agricultural production, the Bauchi State Agricultural Development Programme (BSADP) has been carrying out agricultural extension Services to farmers.
Other extension services being carried out by the programme, he said, included partnering with Agricultural Research Institutes for sourcing improved agricultural innovations for use by farmers to enhance productivity.
The Governor said that in addition, approval has also been granted to the Bauchi State Agricultural Supply Company (BASAC) for the procurement and sale of agricultural inputs to farmers at subsidized prices.
The Governor expressed displeasure at the activities of some selfish and unpatriotic citizens who engage in adulterating all kinds of agricultural inputs, describing it as an act of sabotage, assuring that the perpetrators would be traced and sanctioned appropriately.
Senator Bala Mohammed therefore directed the Ministry of Agriculture, and that of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs to immediately constitute a task force committee comprising security agencies and all other stakeholders to arrest and deal with all culprits accordingly.
He attributed the astronomical rise in the cost of fertilizer to the war between Russia and Ukraine which resulted in the shortage of ammonia as the major raw material for the production of fertilizer, saying this state of affairs would naturally have negative impact on crop production.
The Governor assured that the state government decided to make fertilizer available and affordable to farmers by subsidizing the price of the commodity, pegging a 50 Kg bag of NPK at N15,000 while a 50Kg bag of Urea would be sold at N20,000.
He also described the annual launching of farming season and flag off of sale of fertilizer as a deliberate effort by the Government to motivate farmers to come out en-mass for the production of sufficient food crops to cater for the increasing population and to embrace agriculture as an economic mainstay.
Bala said in spite of the constraint of paucity of funds, the agricultural sector has been accorded the priority it deserves by his administration as attested to by the settlement of the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) inherited debt which enabled the state government to produce fertilizer last year.
He said that his administration in its efforts to train its teeming youths and farmers on good agricultural practices has spent over N75 million for the provision of a befitting accommodation to the State branch of the Agricultural and Rural Management Training Institute (ARMTI).
“You may wish to know that before now ARMTI has only one branch at its headquarters in llorin. However, the Federal Government recently decided to open six more branches based on geo-political zones, consequent upon which we struggled to get the North-East Zonal branch established in Bauchi”.
Mohammed also disclosed that his government has signed an MOU with the Tetfund Centre of Excellence of the Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi in a move to educate the young ones on new farming techniques.
