Benue farmers yet to access dry season inputs

Our correspondent who went round various dry season farms at the bank of River Benue in Makurdi observed that the farmers have started preparing the grounds for crops planting.A vegetable farmer, Evans Ewugi, said he has never received any form of inputs from the government in his 13 years of irrigation farming.“I started farming 13 […]

Our correspondent who went round various dry season farms at the bank of River Benue in Makurdi observed that the farmers have started preparing the grounds for crops planting.
A vegetable farmer, Evans Ewugi, said he has never received any form of inputs from the government in his 13 years of irrigation farming.
“I started farming 13 years ago but I never got assistance of any kind from the government. Nobody from government has ever offered me fertiliser or other inputs and I don’t hope they would suddenly show up.”
Ewugi explained that he used to spend about N25, 000 each dry season to water 300 heaps of pumpkin (Ugwu), adding that he used to spend more than that amount on his spinach, water leaf and other vegetables.
Magida Job, an Okra and maize farmer, said he has never received inputs from the government to help his crops, adding that the government cared less about the dry season farmers.
He said that whenever he went to the ministry of agriculture to get inputs for his farm, his visit often ended in frustration due to administrative bottlenecks.
On his part, the state chairman of All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Aodona Hembe Kule, said that his members were already tilling the ground in preparation for planting, lamenting that they were yet to get fertilisers or any other inputs from the government.
He added that they expected governments, at federal and state levels, to respond to their needs for the season in no distant time from now.