Governor Mohammed Umar Bago of Niger State has directed the immediate release of ₦900m counterpart fund for Agro-Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes (ACReSAL) World Bank-assisted project in the State.
The Governor gave the directive during the flag-off distribution of Farm inputs to farmers across the Twenty-Five Local Government Areas by FADAMA/ACReSAL in Minna recently.
Governor Bago said that a total of 78 metric tons of NPK and Urea fertilisers have been procured as intervention for distribution to beneficiary farmers adding that 4.75 metric tons of rice, maize and sorghum seeds have been made available for distribution to farmers.
He further disclosed that a total of 640 farmers under the Nigeria Covid-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus (NG-CARES) and FADAMA cooperative groups will benefit from the exercise stressing that his administration is poised to support farmers to cultivate 250,000 hectares of land every one year.
“For us in Niger State, we are poised to make sure that agriculture becomes the focus of our administration.
Every Local Government will cultivate 10,000 hectares of land. So we are calling on Ministries of Land and Survey, Agriculture, Environment and all related Ministries to identify the lands and crops that will yield well” He said.
Bago pointed out that his administration had recently supported farmers with 100 trucks of fertilisers across the State hence a clear demonstration of his administration’s commitment to revamping Agriculture to attain food sufficiency.
In his remarks, the National Project Coordinator, Agro-Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes (ACReSAL), Abdulhamid Umar underscored the importance of the ACReSAL Project implementation across the 19 Northern States in Nigeria adding that the Project among others, aims at restoration of degraded land.
To achieve the desired result, the Niger State Project Management Unit (SPMU) of the Agro-Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes (ACReSAL) project, engaged with farmers who are interested in orchard, plantation and agroforestry farming. During the interface, the team which comprises ACReSAL staff, and staff from the Ministry of Agriculture and NAMDA interacted with beneficiary farmers and discussed the farming modalities and the sources of water for the plants.
The team also took the coordinates and the measurement of each farmer’s land for accuracy. The community orchard, plantation and agroforestry farming are expected to cover Two Hundred and Fifty Hectares (250 ha) of Land this year in six LGAs of Niger State. The scheme is aimed at reclaiming the degraded land and at the same time improving the livelihood of the benefiting farmers, since ACReSAL will be supporting farmers with low-hanging fruits of improved variety.