Kwara on The Path of Emerging Food Basket of The Nation – Says Com for Agric

The Kwara State Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Hon. Saba Gideon, has claimed that the state is on the verge of becoming the food basket of the nation, due to the strategic ways that Gov. AbdulRahman AbdulRasaq administration is intervening in the Agricultural sector.

The commissioner, made this assertion while responding to questions on the efforts of the present administration in uplifting the Agricultural sector in the state.

According to him “this administration under the able leadership of Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq has been given so much priority to Agricultural sector since assumption of office, for instance in just concluded 2021 farming season, farmers were given assorted materials at subsidized rate, such as fertilizers, chemicals, and seeds”

“Subsidized rate in the sense that, the price was reduced by 50%, let say a carton of chemical is sold for N20,000 in the market, state government subsidized it for N10,000, and you know what that means to a farmer. We are talking about nothing less that 50 metric tonnes of seeds alone, apart from fertilizers and other chemicals. All these has increased Farmers productivity, reduced their cost of production and also increase their output”

“The Governor does not stop at that, he also purchased 15 tractors, which is renting out to farmers at subsidized rate and made available in all local government areas in the state. So, all these has helped the farmers in a big way to cushion hardness mostly face in farming. Governor, also purchased 2 bulldozers to help farmers clear their virgin lands and also used to open up road network, all these are renting out at a very subsidized rate”

“There is ongoing digitalization of Farmers across the state, and we are targeting to enumerate nothing less than 100,000 farmers to start as litmus test. This digitalization is coming in order to have wide distribution of farm materials. Because, we notice that in the previous year, most of the materials distributed were not gotten into the hand of real farmers. There were people like market men and women that came to bought it at subsidized rate and they went to sold it in the market at market value price. But with this digitalization, we will capture a particular farmer with a particular product he or she is dealing with. We are visiting farm, take location, then, input it on our system for capturing. We have a situation room in the ministry now to monitor all farmers from our office. If you are a crop farmer, we will snap you with your crop and number of your hectares, your full name, location and all necessary information, so, when you are demanding for any type of seeds or farm materials, we will just enter your name and bring out your information, this will enable us to know if we are dealing with right farmer or not. If you are into poultry, or processing this digitalization is also meant for you. So right now it is 95% completion, that is the first phase of getting it right”

Responding to question on effect of government support on the market price of farm produce, Commissioner said “Yes. Definitely, any action have its own multiply effect, immediately farmers inputs were subsidized it enable farmer to expand their capacity by two times, a farmer that only have money to cultivate just a hectare before, it will give him opportunity to cultivate two hectares. The productivity is high, it brings down inflation, because, when a production level goes up, the multiply effect also automatically goes up. So, I can confidently tell you that , since inception of this administration we have been having more heeds in terms of farmer productivity and there are more foods in the market, people came from far North to come and buy food here in Kwara. In addition, presently now, at Gbugbu market in Edu local government area, the Governor has approved, international market, and the construction is ongoing, that one alone has even encouraged farmers to go into more production, because their produce will be market at good price and issue of middle men will not be there”

“you know in the law of demand, they say the higher the price the lower the quantity demanded. Definitely, when things are not scarce, when Beans, Rice and other produce are available in the market, it will definitely brought down the level of price. Had it been we did not have much production last year, food would have cost more in the market by now. Since production capacity of the farmers have increased, it has lower the price and brought down scarcity. If you also see rice pyramid that just concluded in Abuja, Kwara state was one of the best states that contributed their own quota and all these made possible because of government intervention in Agriculture”

Also talking on his contribution to move the sector forward, the Commissioner said “as my assumption in the office five months ago, I have visited all the four corner in the state have interacted with the farmers to know their problems and see how the government can come in, how they can improve their own process of production, I have had meetings with several of them, fish farmers, crops farmers, and poultry farmers. We have also designed a lot of programmes and interventions. We have collaboration with CBN, World Bank. Presently we have 3 programmes that we want to kick off this year 2022. The fish farmers also, we have discussed with them taken sample of their fishes and link them up with appropriate commercial Banks, where state can stand for them as collateral and guarantor”

“So we have been working round the clock to ensure that this farming season is more productive than the last one. Presently now, since my assumption into the office, we have also taken a case study of irrigation, we have 60 locations across the state, we are using it as result demonstration point, how farmers can use their facilities in terms of irrigation, so now, the irrigation points are under construction, we have constructed over 10 now, we have all the materials available in the ministry to distribute to farmers accordingly, because we notice that planting in a raining season will not be enough, presently now, we are also encouraging farmers and training them on how to use all these modern irrigation equipments, to boost up their farming season, so that we can have production across the season and across the year. We are on top of the game, farmers are happy with us, we are giving all the necessary support within our capacities”