Bakalori irrigation farmers reject plans to concession site

The faces of the farmers wore fears and worries when accosted by our reporter who visited the mass irrigation farmlands where he met the farmers working on their farms and they told Daily Trust that they were surprised when they heard about the plan even though nobody approached them on the move.Some of the farmers […]

The faces of the farmers wore fears and worries when accosted by our reporter who visited the mass irrigation farmlands where he met the farmers working on their farms and they told Daily Trust that they were surprised when they heard about the plan even though nobody approached them on the move.
Some of the farmers said they inherited the farmlands from their forefathers while a few others said they bought theirs but they all said they cannot sell or forfeit their farmlands to any government or company under any guise because the entire farmlands belong to the individual farmers.
They said the federal government had no right to concede their farms to any one or group of persons, adding that it will impact negatively on food production not only in the state but in the whole country.
Mallam Abdullahi Salisu is a rice farmer in Bakalori, he told our reporter that he had heard what the federal government is trying to do, adding, “I heard about the move by the government to concession these farms but I wonder if the federal government considers the implication of this obnoxious policy because the problem is that when these sites are taken over from us what do they expect us to do?”
He said he knew no business other than farming as such he would never give in to policy that will not help his future because taking his rice farms means creating untold hardship for him and any other person that worked on the fields.
Mallam Salihu who said he used to harvest 100 bags of rice every farming season in addition to onions and carrots, said the price of husked rice has appreciated as they are now selling a bag at over N5,000 as against the N2,000 they used to sell it some seasons ago.
Another farmer, Mu’azu Umar, said instead of federal government to collect their fields they should focus on helping them to overcome threats they face from insects, destructive birds and other weeds species that have become nuisance to them.
“Look at that farm, you can see some ropes tied on sticks on the farm, they are meant to scare away strange birds from destroying the rice.
The birds are wrecking great havoc on our rice farms and whenever they invade our farms they suck the nectar juice and at the end it will give a very bad or poor yield or may not even yield at all. These birds can destroy a whole farm no matter how big within a very short time and they are alien because they fly from other countries down here.
“Sometimes the government deploys aircraft to come and spray them but mainly after they have destroyed the crops. You can see them destroying our rice now and there’s no intervention from government. Sometimes we employ children to scare away the birds,” he said.
Our reporter saw many farmers thrashing their rice locally, bagging and loading in vehicles for conveyance down to markets and sometimes stores at homes. Some of the farmers interviewed expressed satisfaction with this year’s irrigation harvest, saying they had a bumper harvest and the price of rice is encouraging.
Reacting, the state Commissioner for Agriculture, Alhaji Malami Aliyu Yandoto allayed the fears nursed by the farmers on the concession of the irrigation site, adding, “When we talk about privatization or concession of our irrigation system in Bakalori, we are talking of two issues here; the Dam – that is the water facilities or resources, or the site – that is the fields from which the farmers earn their livelihood. Let me tell you, no government can ever think of privatizing lands as all lands belong to government.                     You know Bakalori Dam is situated in Maradun local government area of Zamfara and it was built in the 80’s during the administration of former President Shehu Shagari for the sole aim of providing conducive environment for the irrigation farming activities and potable drinking water.
“The dam, according to experts, has the capacity of 450 million cubic liters of water and has the life span of 500 years if properly utilized and more than 35,000 farmers are utilizing almost 20,000 hectares of lands at the irrigation site and the figures has been on the increase since the project started 35 years ago,” he said.