FG to provide inputs to 1m farmers for wet season farmimg

The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development says it will provide farm inputs to one million farmers across the federation during the wet season farming.

Ohiare Jatto, the Director, Farm Input Support Services Department in the ministry, disclosed this on Thursday while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.

He said that the inputs would be under the governments’ Growth Enhancement Support (GES) scheme.

The director said that the non-passage of the 2017 budget by was responsible for the delay in the distribution of the inputs for the wet season.

“Most of government expenditure is based on budget and you cannot spend any money that is not budgeted for.

“The ministry has been making a case that agriculture being time-dependent, should have seasons; you should start a particular thing at the right time.

“If we can have a kind of waiver whereby at the end of every year we already have something in our kitty that we can start spending as early as possible the following year. The issue of input can be accommodated

“So that by February, we have started doing our paper work and by March, we are already in the field giving out input to farmers especially in the South. And by April, May in the North, so that at the end of the day, the timeliness of our input distribution is very right.
“But of course, the present situation is that you have to know how much is allocated to input before you start committing agro dealers that will supply farmers these inputs.

“Because we do not want to go into a situation again where we are going to owe agro dealers based on assumption that what is in the budget will be approved.

“But for this year’s wet season, we are preparing and with what is in the budget, we hope we will be able to get to one million farmers.’’

Jatto disclosed that the Federal Government was currently owing agro-dealers and suppliers over N30 billion for the supplies they made during the 2014 wet season farming and the 2014-2015 dry season farming.

He listed some inputs to be given to farmers to include two bags of Nitrogen Potassium Phosphate (NPK), one bag of urea, one bag of organic fertiliser, 25-kilogram rice seeds and 20kg maize seeds.

According to the director, farmers usually pay 75 per cent worth of the inputs during the wet season farming while the Federal Government pays the remaining 25 per cent.
“For the wet season, farmers pay 50 per cent, and the federal and state governments settle the remaining 50 per cent worth of the inputs but since 2016, because of the recession, the states opted out.

“The farmers pay 75 per cent of whatever is given to them and the Federal Government pays the remaining 25 per cent.
“For the dry season farming, states have not been participating. It has been a Federal Government affair. Farmers now pay 50 per cent and the government pays the other 50 per cent,’’ he explained.