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The President, Maize Association of Nigeria (MAAN), Alhaji Bello Abubakar Annur says maize produce is affected by about 10 – 20 percent due to security challenges in the northern region.
Alhaji Annur who disclosed this at the end of a seminar organized for newly elected officials of the association said despite insecurity the produce this year was better than last year by 10 per cent.
“Actually everybody knows there’s insecurity In this area but despite that, we’re still producing maize. “But some of our farmers were not able to evacuate what they produce because of the insecurity. And some of them have started farming along the road and have now left the farm because of insecurity”.
“It has affected our production about, But we still produce more than what we produced last year. If u look at the programs going on now, especially the Anchor Borrower program, is part of the way of engaging the youth, especially women and girls because it provides job opportunities and also trains the farmers on how to be self-independent in terms of agriculture” he lamented.
“And then when this program is sustainable our youth will get a job that gives them independence and contributes to the growth of the economy in Nigeria”. Alhaji Annur added
While this is coming about the time they’re going to unveil maize pyramid in Kaduna, the president said “You can see we’ve almost finished the formation of the pyramid and is looking attracting to more and more people, especially the youth”.
“This is why I said if we sustain it this way it’ll attract our youth to be self-independent in agriculture. We have formed about 21 pyramids which you can see physically on the ground and last year we had formed only ten percent”.
Alhaji Annur said “You can see that there’s an improvement. So this shows that we can tell Nigerians and the world that we’ve reached a point where we can depend on our own in terms of maize production in Nigeria”