1,000 rice farmers to benefit from agric empowerment programme in Taraba

By Bisola Adeyemo

Taraba State has been selected to host the rice transformational programme organised by Fevick Resources, to empower women and youth in Agric business during the wet season farming.

The Project Coordinator of Fevick Resources, Mr. Samuel Adeshina, told journalists in Abuja, on Tuesday that the new wet-season rice farming project would link farmers to new technologies and high-yield seedlings.

He said that 1, 000 women and youths who are to participate in the novel wet-season rice planting project, have been identified.

His words, “We can derive six to seven metric tonnes of rice per hectare by introducing new varieties of very high yielding seedlings.”

These include: direct fertilizer supply under which the farmers would receive NPK and UREA; seeds variety supply under which the farmers would receive Faro 66 and 67 ; while the third part of the credit termed, Crop Protection Product (CPP), would cover labour and services.

“The loans will cover land preparation, harvesting, threshing and aggregation,” the Coordinator said.

He said that the project would create strong and effective linkages to quality agro-inputs and services including mechanization, credits, insurance, technology, information, and market for rural farmers to improve their livelihoods and build sustainable agriculture.

According to him, “Participants will be clustered as a registered geo-cooperative having its own corporate governance structure on contiguous farmland. They will be ultimately responsible for supervising, managing their respective plots as well as working together as a geo-cooperative.”

In his remarks, Chief Binuga Gargea, the Gargea Donga said “the project has gingered our farmers to be up and doing, to embrace the program and take to rice production so that they will not be idle in the wet season farming and they will equally be busy during the dry season farming too and that will actually fill their pockets”.

He called on Taraba State Governor, Architect Darius Ishaku, to provide the necessary government support for the project to achieve the desired results.