Over 3,000 farmers in Katsina State have so far benefitted from various interventions under the Nigeria Covid-19 Action Recovery and Economy Stimulus, NG CARES program, which is being supported by the World Bank, the Federal Government and State Governments.
The Coordinator of the FADAMA CARES Component of the program, Alhaji Mas’ud Mustafa Banye disclosed after an inspection tour of some farms under the program area to assess the level of implementation.
He explained that the program has provided assistance to one thousand, six hundred and fifty maize and sorghum farmers and given various farming inputs to one thousand, three hundred and fifty poor and vulnerable farmers in the state.
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“Each maize farmer was given 10kg of maize seedlings, three bags of NPK and one bag of Urea Fertilizer as well as herbicides and pesticides”.
“Similarly, each sorghum farmer was given 10kg bag of seeds, two bags of NPK, a bag of urea and gallon if liquid fertilizer”.
“The farmers were also exposed to intensive capacity building while extension agents were dispatched to their various farms to guide them”.
“The farming implements given to the 1,350 farmers include thrashers, knapsack sprayers, food packaging machines and Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) to prevent them from coming into contact with harmful chemicals”.
Alhaji Mas’ud Banye pointed out that women and physically challenged persons constitute 40 percent of the beneficiaries in all the interventions under the Area II component of the NG CARES program which is being coordinated by the FADAMA office.
He noted that the program which targets a total of twenty five thousand farmers will run for a period of two years divided into four cycles of six months each.
While at ‘Yanmagajin Yamma community in Bindawa Local Government Area, the chairman of the farmers’ cooperative, Malam Bello AbdurRahman said one hundred sorghum farmers in the area benefitted from the assistance.
He said they were clustered in groups of ten where each farmer received two bags of NPK, one bag of urea fertilizer, a gallon of liquid fertilizer and herbicides which were given to them free.
The team also inspected the fisheries component of the NG CARES program at the Goruba fish farmers office in Katsina where the lead consultant, Dr. Babangida AbdulKareem said his team goes on routine inspection to the fish farms to advise the farmers on best practices.
He said the program will select more fish farmers from vulnerable community across the state to benefit from subsequent cycles of the program.
Isma’il Adamu