The Federal Capital Territory Administration FCTA on Friday flagged off the 2023 farming season, four years after it last did so.
At the occasion where she distributed assorted agricultural inputs to farmers, Minister of State in the FCT, Dr Ramatu Tijjani Aliyu noted that the last time the event took place in the FCT was in 2019.
“During the protest, almost all our warehouses were vandalized which stalled efforts of the Secretariat to organize the event in 2022”, she said.
Aliyu added that over the past year, the Administration has been able to carry out an overhaul of various warehouses and constructed additional structures to increase their capacity to contain as many inputs as possible.
“In the same vein, the budgetary provision for the procurement of agricultural inputs has been increased from N200 million in 2021 to a whooping N2billion in the 2023 budget which has been utilized to procure fertilizers and non-fertilizer inputs such as Irrigation equipment, mechanized farm implements, Agro- chemicals as well as assorted improved seedlings. Furthermore, a total of 970 MT of NPK, 750 MT of Urea, 6,000 liters of liquid fertilizers have been purchased. All the products are to be sold to farmers at the 50% subsidized rates as approved by the FCT Administration.
“In order to ensure that the inputs reach the targeted farmers, I have issued a directive to the Agriculture & Rural Development Secretariat to ensure that the Fertilizer Distribution Committee expands its scope of distribution to reach out to more farmers. Our primary focus is to ensure that Cooperative societies, Area Council authorities, 17 chiefdoms, SWOFON (Women Farmers), Sarkin Noma’s in the 62 wards of FCT, vulnerable groups as well as known individual farmers are captured in the list”, she added.
On his part, Permanent Secretary in the FCT Administration, Mr Olusade Adesola noted that global hunger is at a record high with the number of people who are food-insecure growing astronomically.
He said an indication that the FCT Administration is moving in the right direction is the 2022 Food Security Analysis Report which shows a reduction of over 30% in the population of food-insecure households from about 349,876 in October 2021 to 233,233 as of November 2022.
“It is on this premise that I would like to start by stressing the importance of the initiative of annual provision of inputs to farmers, as strategic in strengthening the capacity of our food production systems to meet the yearnings of any society.
“It is in line with this objective that the FCT Administration has over the years, increased the budgetary allocation to the agricultural sector and I want to say that the support that we are giving farmers today is so far, the highest in the history of the Federal Capital Territory. Credit for this must however go to the Honorable Minister of State, FCT for being at the forefront of advocating for better funding for the sector”, said Adesola.
Earlier, Secretary, Agriculture and Rural Development Secretariat in the FCTA, Mallam Abubakar Ibrahim, expressed optimism that with the very large quantity of inputs that have been procured for distribution, the FCT will be witnessing a bumper harvest this year.
“Our projection on the outcome of this support is an improvement of up to 30% in the food insecurity situation in the Federal Capital Territory.
“In the same vein, following the directives of the Honourable Minister of State, FCT, the Secretariat has taken measures that will help to prevent sharp practices with the setting up of a Fertilizer Distribution Committee that will not only ensure that the products are sold to targeted farmers at the subsidized rates, but also monitor the markets to ensure that they are not sold illegally in the markets”, he stated.
VANGUARD
