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The President of a
newly merged Nigeria Agro Input Dealers (NAIDA) Alhaji Kabiru Fara has called
for the autonomy of the Department of Fertilizer saying this would empower it
to quickly respond to the need of farmers in terms of making fertilizer
available at the nip of time.
Alhaji Fara gave this advice during the visit of
Food Farm News to his office in Kano recently.
Fara who raised
concern that farmers in the year 2020 planting season would experience
fertilizer scarcity due to unpreparedness advised that the department of
fertilizer should be left to operate under less supervision of the Federal Ministry
of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD.
He promised that his
Association together with others would join voice to speak for an Act to establish
the department of fertilizer like National Agricultural Seeds Council and
National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) saying
this would enable the department to have their budget and power to implement
programme on fertilizers without disturbance.
He also advocated for
the return of Growth Enhancement Support Programme (GESS) of the Federal
Government (FG) saying it was the only
programme that have been able to meet the need of farmers in terms of
inputs as long as the farmer is registered.
According to him
‘everywhere the Minister goes in the country, the farmers keep telling him
about GES because that is the only programme that the farmers benefited from. The
Anchor Borrowers programme is a failure. The Presidential Fertilizer initiative
is a failure, the only programme that the farmers in this country enjoy is the
GES, unless you are not on that list. Everybody benefited, the agro dealers, farmers and vendors of inputs are happy . So if that is what will take agriculture to
the next level the only thing that the government needs to do is to strengthen
it’’
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