FCT council to revamp dam, boost irrigation farming

The chairman of Kwali Area Council of the FCT, Hon Nuhu Daniel Kwali, has disclosed that his administration will train youths on irrigation farming in the area. Kwali, while speaking to newsmen shortly after he received a group of farmers’ associations in his office on Tuesday, said the council’s desire to encourage youth irrigation farming […]

The chairman of Kwali Area Council of the FCT, Hon Nuhu Daniel Kwali, has disclosed that his administration will train youths on irrigation farming in the area.

Kwali, while speaking to newsmen shortly after he received a group of farmers’ associations in his office on Tuesday, said the council’s desire to encourage youth irrigation farming was aimed at enhancing food sustainability.

“Already, we have an abandoned dam which was constructed some years ago by a former House of Representatives member for Abuja South Federal Constituency, as we were trying to see what we are going to make of that dam to engage some of the youth to go into irrigation farming,” he said.

He said the council was already making arrangements to procure machines, which he said would be distributed to a group of youth who would be engaged in irrigation farming.

 

 

 

He added that the council would also procure farm inputs such as herbicides, agro-chemicals, sprayers and assorted seedlings as well as fertiliser, which he said would be distributed free to rural farmers across the council.

 

 

 

“And even as I am talking, the council is already collaborating with the Agricultural and Rural Development Secretariat of the FCTA on how they will assist us with an agriculture consultant who will train some of these youth that will be engaged in irrigation farming,” he said.

 

 

 

The chairman, however, stated that 85 per cent of its inhabitants, especially in rural communities, are peasant farmers engaged in the production of a variety of crops; hence, it becomes necessary for his administration to give priority to the agricultural sector.