Kano farmers still waiting for FG’s tractors

The AEHE progranmme, initiated by the Federal Government, was designed to boost and modernise the agricultural sector in the country.Under the program, the Federal Government, in partnership with private investors, will establish a 1,200 private sector driven project for the purpose of hiring farming equipment to farmers at a “50 percent subsidised price.”A visit by […]

The AEHE progranmme, initiated by the Federal Government, was designed to boost and modernise the agricultural sector in the country.
Under the program, the Federal Government, in partnership with private investors, will establish a 1,200 private sector driven project for the purpose of hiring farming equipment to farmers at a “50 percent subsidised price.”
A visit by our correspondent to one of the sites belonging to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture revealed no indication of the presence of new equipment there.  Farmers who spoke to Daily Trust in Kano expressed mixed reactions of hope and fear.
They said they hope that the programme will commence on time, pledging to support it while, on the other hand, fear that the programme may not succeed.
Many ‘good’ projects have been introduced by the federal government, according to them, but along the line the projects were abandoned or sabotaged.
Individuals and groups have already started running a similar programme in Kano State whereby farmers can acquire equipment from the company on hire purchase arrangement.
The problem with this kind of arrangement, according some farmers, is lack of maintenance of the equipment.
Mu’azu Datti Yadakwari of the Kadawa Tomato Farmers Association said he heard about AEHE in the news, adding that the programme is a welcome development.
The only problem, he said, has to do with implementation.
“We are still waiting for it, but our fear is there are many good programmes introduced at both state and federal levels but along the way they were abandoned,” he said.
“Some time we are not benefiting from any project they introduced. At the end you will find that it is only our name they are using. However, we are still supporting them because we do not know whether this one would be real.”
He advised government to get honest people to handle the project and introduce a system whereby an independent body would be monitoring it.    
The state director of the ministry of agriculture, Adamu Muhammad Shehu, said the state will get its share of the equipments after the recent launching of the programme at the North-west regional office in Zamfara State.
He said that the federal government introduced AEHE in consideration of the numerous challenges local farmers face such as lack of mechanised farming.