By Abdulrahman Abdullahi
Kwara State Governor, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq has approved the purchase of farm inputs such as fertilizers, seedlings, and herbicides to support farmers for the 2021 farming season,
Although details about the funds for the farm inputs were not disclosed, a statement from the state’s Technical Assistant on Agriculture, Abdulquawiy Olododo, on Friday said up to 6,000 farmers will benefit from the new initiative.
“These farm inputs will be subsidized at a rate of 50 percent for the farmers and the State will be supporting not less than 6,000 farmers with agricultural inputs across the State,” the statement read.
For the distribution of the farm inputs, the governor set up a committee that comprises top officials from the state’s ministry of agriculture and other relevant stakeholders.
Members of the committee include the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Technical Assistant on Agriculture to the governor, Ag. MD Agricultural Development Project (ADP), Director Agricultural Services, Ministry of Agriculture, Director Engineering Services, Ministry of Agriculture, Director Planning Research and Statistics, Ministry of Agriculture, Fadama Coordinator, Head of ICT/Technical, Agro Mall.
In a related development, the Kwara state government announced that it will digitise farmers’ data collection in order to operate on credible and reliable information when embarking on farmers’ intervention such as the distribution of the farm inputs.
Speaking during the just-concluded joint sector review on the implementation of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) in Ilorin, Technical Assistant on Agriculture, Abdulquawiy Olododo also stressed the need for data collection to achieve the state’s agricultural transformation plan.
“From the agriculture transformation plan that we unveiled, the first programme is the farmers’ data bank because we know the importance of having a data bank,” he said.