From Okwe Obi, Abuja
The Federal Government has vowed to clean up the farmers’ register, stating that fake or unverifiable farmers posing as portfolio investors would be deleted to boost food production.
Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari, stated this yesterday when Katsina State Governor, Dikko Umar Radda, paid him a courtesy call in Abuja.
Kyari noted that the feat would be achieved with the support of state governments.
He said: “In addition to achieving what Mr President has said in his new year address is to provide 500 hectares of arable land for this year.
“We are committed and we are assuring our citizens that we are also going to exceed Mr President’s target.
“First things first, we have to collaborate with the states and local governments to come up with a genuine and verifiable farmers’ list.
“This is very important because we have to know who the real farmers are. And by so doing we have to collaborate with the local authorities and the state so that they can buy in to our programmes and also to succeed what we set out to do.
“In addition, we are going to set up from our side and the side of the states a task force team to make sure that this programme is successful like the land tripping issue, veritable data and the inability of farmers to come up with their own portion because of the precarious economic situation that we have found ourselves in.”
Governor Radda, who corroborated the initiative, said he would separate politicians parading as farmers from the real farmers and empower them adequately.
“Without data you cannot pinpoint who a farmer is and who is not a farmer. Unfortunately, we are politicians and in most states, we have politicised the distribution of inputs and distribution of other materials to farmers, but to politicians who are not into agricultural production.
“In Katsina State, we have been able to separate the two. Politics be on one side, real farmers be on the other side.
“We want to have a way of helping the politicians without necessarily taking what they do not deserve and without necessarily taking what he will not utilise adequately and will end up selling it in the market without much impact on the economy.
“So, right now I am discussing with the consultants developing a data bank for us in the state for our farmers. With that, it would help the distribution of inputs and reaching out to farmers on any kind of intervention that they need.
“Recently, we visited the African Development Bank. I led the team and I felt that we need to give a regional approach to development because if we are doing it in piecemeal, it would not give us the added value that we need. We were able to have a very fruitful discussion. The only state that was not part of the SAPZ Project was Zamfara State”, he said.