President Muhammadu Buhari is billed to commission Integrated Farm Estate in Katsina, which is built by National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA).
It was reliably gathered that the commissioning of the first NALDA Integrated Farm Estate by President Buhari would take place on Monday next week in Daura, Katsina State.
It would be recalled that NALDA was established by the administration of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida vide Decree No. 92 of 1992 to execute a National Agricultural Land Development Programme that would address the chronic problem of low levels of utilisation of abundant farmland and rural labour resources as well as the high cost of land development.
The agency was however scrapped in 2002, 10 years into its existence, by President Olusegun Obasanjo led administration.
NALDA was resuscitated last year June after President Buhari’s administration amended the Act establishing the agency through the National Assembly to optimally deliver on its mandate of developing the rural communities through agriculture.
Speaking at the launch of the National Young Farmers Scheme(NYFS), which is one of the programmes of NALDA, designed to attract more youth into farming, Buhari said agriculture remains the backbone of the Nigerian economy, being the largest contributor to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
He said: “We will do more to expand, modernise and revolutionise our agriculture, which is our most important asset,” he was quoted to have said in a statement signed by his media aid, Femi Adesina.
