N14bn dry season farming: Farmers express mixed feelings

The fund is meant to help farmers produce rice and maize during the dry season. This initiative came after the devastated experience of 2012 flood, which left many farmlands destroyed. According to the government, producing food in dry season will help curb the effect of flood, which threatens food security.Our reporters checked with the dry […]

The fund is meant to help farmers produce rice and maize during the dry season. This initiative came after the devastated experience of 2012 flood, which left many farmlands destroyed. According to the government, producing food in dry season will help curb the effect of flood, which threatens food security.
Our reporters checked with the dry season farmers across the country how they have benefitted, or otherwise, from the N14 billion but many said they have not felt the impact of the programme.
From Kano, Chairman of the state AFAN, Alhaji Muhammed Tukur Bello, said that the federal government needs to review its approach in the distribution channels adapted for the programme.
However, chairman of Kano Apex Padama Users Association, Umar Tsara, revealed that out of 64 thousand registered members of the association, over 43 thousands have benefited from the federal government’s assistance.
He added that under the programme, each irrigation farmer was given three bags of fertiliser at 50% subsidised price and one 25kg bag of improved seed.
Hajiya Fatima Sharif is the chairperson of the women wing of All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), known for her efforts in irrigation farming. Fatima produces over 1,300 bags of rice annually. According to her, most women farmers in the state have not benefited from the federal government agricultural intervention.
“The men may have benefited from the intervention, but for us the female irrigation farmers, who constitute about 30% of the total number of irrigation farmers in Kano State, have not been,” Fatima lamented.
In Zamfara, the Secretary of Bakalori Water Users Association Mallam  Yusha’u  Mafara said irrigation farmers in Zamfara State could have faced challenges in this year’s dry  season farming  had the federal government not intervened through the timely provision of seed and fertiliser.
He said irrigation farmers in Zamfara State were captured under the federal government’s N14b intervention scheme for the dry season farmers nationwide, adding that about 30,000 irrigation farmers have benefited from the programme.
He added: “Initially 12,000 farmers were given three bags of fertilizer and a bag of seed but some months later after the closure of the programme a special grant was given to additional 20,000 Bakalori farmers when we formally requested for that through the Water Users Association. The distribution of seed and fertiliser was completed first week of April and I can tell you that the farmers are really happy with this intervention.”
Mafara further explained that the fertiliser was given to the farmers at the subsidised rate, saying each farmer bought the bag of fertiliser at the rate of N2,750 and the bags of seed were given free of charge as about 130,000 irrigation farmers were identified in Zamfara State.
In Gombe, irrigation farmers have expressed their satisfaction with the federal government’s N14 billion intervention programme.  Members of farmers’ association said the intervention has really boosted this year dry season farming in the state.
According to the irrigation farmers in Balanga, Yamaltu Deba and Funakaye interviewed by Daily Trust said the grant came in the form of seeds, water pumps and GES fertiliser.
However, in Kebbi State, the story is different. The Director Irrigation, Kebbi State Ministry of Agriculture, Umar Hussaini Kalgo, said the state did not benefit from such funds during the period under review.
“To the best of my knowledge, Kebbi State did not get such funds for irrigation till date,” he said.
Leader of All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Kebbi State chapter, Garba Amadi, could not be reached for his comment as calls and text messages sent to his number was not replied.
However, Secretary of the Kebbi State chapter on AFAN, Mohammed Idris, confirmed that no such fund for irrigation farming was received by their members in the state.
He said: “No single kobo came to Kebbi State out of the N14 billion you mentioned from the Federal Government for irrigation farming.”
In Minna, the chairman of Niger State chapter of All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Umar Aliyu, said his association was aware of the money but no member has benefited from the money.
He said: “We have not received a single kobo from Federal Government for irrigation farming this year.”
Contacted, the state Commissioner for Agriculture, Ibrahim Ahmed Matane, said to the best of his knowledge, a fertiliser was sold at 50 pecent subsidised amount, 80 water pumps and seeds were distributed during this year’s dry season farming.
But in Kwara State, Director of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr. Adebisi Buhari, confirmed to Daily Trust that funds were made available by the government but the response of farmers to the programme was not what they expected.
Those that responded well by accessing the funds, he disclosed, got three bags of fertiliser, either 25kilogramme of rice or 20kilogramme of maize, saying that there are inputs still available at some of the redemption centres in the state.
In Benue State, farmers have said that they are not aware and are yet to benefit from the federal government’s N14 billion approved for this year’s irrigation farming.
State chairman of All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Aondona Hembe Kula, told our correspondent in Makurdi that the association knew nothing about the fund.
“We did not benefit anything, we are not even aware of it,” he said.
In a similar response, an official of the Water Users Association at the Lower Benue River Basin who declined to have his name on print also said they have not benefitted from the grant.
While Hassan Saka, an irrigation vegetable farmer at Wadata area of the bank of river Benue maintained that he was hearing about the grant for the first time from Daily Trust.
He noted: “I don’t know what you are talking about. I’m just hearing about it for the first time, there is no grant from anywhere because I use my money to fund my irrigation farming here.”
Similarly, the authorities of Anambra /Imo River Basin Development have said that they have not received any money from the N14b approved by the Federal Government for irrigation farming in the country.
Some of the agency’s officials have equally told Daily Trust that they have not even heard of such money being approved by federal government for irrigation farming.
From Anambra, our correspondent reports that the impact of N14 billion Irrigation Dry Season Farming support programme has not reached the state.
According to Chief Bridget Obi, Executive Director Children of the Farmers Club (CFC) an NGO, Anambra State has not benefied.
She said that riverine areas of the state like Ogbaru, Ayamelum and Anambra Easat and West that are supposed to carry out irrigation farming do not fully meet up because of “system failure.”