Agro dealers want fertilizer department separate from the ministry

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’’