Stakeholders in Agriculture, under the auspices of All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) have called on federal government to inject N200billion into Bank of Agriculture BOA for food sufficiency in the country.
This was part of the out come of the Northeast AFAN stakeholders meeting held in Damaturu today comprises of Adamawa, Borno, Bauchi, Taraba, Gombe and Yobe states.
In his remarks, the AFAN National Publicity Secretary, Hon. Mohammed Magaji, said the aim of the meeting was to assess the level of performance of agriculture in each state of the Northeast in terms of support to farmers.
“This meeting is to x-ray the level of federal government interventions in Agriculture in the zone, assess level of success of the presidential fertilizer initiative programme and also the role played by Bank of Agriculture in financing macro and micro scale farmers”, he said.
Magaji, while commending the efforts of federal government and Yobe state for selling the cheapest fertilizer at N3,500 to farmers, called for purchase of grains from farmers directly at a reasonable price to store and also bring policy that will guarantee minimum price of commodities before the onset of raining season.
Earlier; declaring the meeting opened, Governor Ibrahim Gaidam represented by the Hon. Commissioner of Agriculture, Engr. Mustapha Gajerima, said Yobe state had provided 8,600 metric tones of fertilizer for the 2018 cropping season and sold to farmers at N3,500.
“Apart from the fertilizer, we have cultivated good hectares of land for irrigation, construction of earth dams, and provision of animal traction on loan to be repaid in four years to returnee Internally Displaced Persons” he said.
There were goodwill messages from the representatives of Bank of Agriculture, Central Bank of Nigeria, among others.
