Follow Us on Google
…Says chemical fertiliser poisonous
Okwe Obi, Abuja
The Small Scale Women Farmers Organisation in Nigeria (SWOFON), on Thursday, appealed to the Federal Government to make organic fertilisers available to farmers in order to produce safe food for Nigerians
SWOFON president, Mary Ishaya, made the call, in Abuja, during a stakeholder’s consultative meeting on FCT 2019 Agricultural Budget.
She lamented that the application of too much chemical fertiliser to the soil was making agricultural produce more toxic and denying farmers the opportunity to export abroad because it is not meeting with the European standard.
Said she, “Farmers end up producing for consumption, we want to produce according to international standard by avoiding the use of chemical that can poison our food.
READ ALSO: Flood: Niger Republic community seeks access to Nigeria
“The organic manure is better for the farmers and also help to mitigate against climate change.”
Other News
She also decried that the FCT administration was not engaging FCT small holder women farmers in budget processes in the agricultural sector.
“We have actually looked at the agricultural budget for the FCT, engage a consultant to analyse it and we are trying to see how the women can see areas that affect them, so that they can be able to follow up with the government to demand their own portion of the budget.
“We want to see how they would be able to engage the government to demand that they want more of organic fertiliser rather than too much of chemical fertiliser to be able to produce safe food for our people.
“We have in some areas government also distribute organic fertiliser but the farmers themselves don’t even want the organic because the chemical fertiliser is fast.
“Sometimes even when government procure the organic fertiliser and give them they don’t want to collect it thinking that the chemical fertiliser is the best.”
READ ALSO: Legal Aid Council treats 31 cases in Kano in August
Meanwhile, SWOFON National Coordinator, Omoboyowa Roberts, explained that the aim of the programme was to present the analysis on budget processes and non involvement of small holder women farmers.
She stressed that they were looking at how small holders farmers, especially women who could be part of the budget processes and planning so that their demands could be reflect in properly itemized budget lines.
