By Olamide Francis
Gombe State Governor, Inuwa Yahaya, has said the state has the largest grazing reserve in Africa.
Yahaya made this assertion on Friday at the state capital while hosting the Minister of State for Agriculture, Mustapha Shehuri, who was in the state to inaugurate agricultural input to smallholder farmers of 14 crops to reduce the effects of COVID-19.
He said, “We are blessed with the Dadinkowa dam, blessed with the Balanga dam, and the Cham dam and the other water body coast of River Gongola, makes the state a very viable one for agricultural purposes.
“On top of that, we have the largest grazing reserve in the whole of Africa, the Wawa Zange grazing reserve which is 144,000 hectares.”
While urging the Federal Government for more collaborations, Yahaya stressed that the state suffers high burden as a result of her geographical location.
“That has brought a lot of stress on our resources; agricultural, healthcare, infrastructure, water supply and so on. That has made us very vulnerable and we need the support of the federal ministry of agriculture and all the federal ministries, departments and agencies for us to continue to shoulder that responsibility of displaced people and sustain the means of livelihood of our people. Seventy-five or 80 percent of our people are peasant farmers with a population of about 3.5 million people,” the governor added.
On his part, Shehuri said he was in the state to inaugurate farm input to support farmers most especially, women in line with the National Gender Action Plan and Policies aimed at ensuring increased opportunities for women.
