N13B pest intervention, no releases yet, says Govt official

The Head, Pest Control Service, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) Mr. Danlami Aliyu Chafe said that no fund has been released from the N13 billion intervention fund to combat birds and other diseases mitigating against food security in the North. Mr. Danlami Aliyu Chafe disclosed this to Food Farm News during a chat.

Chafe pointed that only N2.8 billion out of the total amount as announced by the Minister of Agriculture, Alhaji Sabo Nanono would be spent on fighting birds, pest and other diseases’ control on food production, saying that no kobo has been released till now despite  diseases invasion in those frontline states sharing borders with other nations in the North. 

He explained that currently there has been an outbreak of quelea birds and grasshoppers’ migrating from Niger Republic, but stressed  no fund to take any action,  despite that the money has been approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) along with other projects in a cumulative manner, saying there is need to release the fund so as to rescue the food security situation of the country as being alerted by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation ( FAO).

According to him ‘’ we had a report of the outbreak of the quelea birds and grasshoppers migrating from Niger Republic. In addition to that during this covid-19 we received a red alert from the FAO on the outbreak in East Africa which if nothing is done urgently, West African countries will also partake in the outbreak,  particularly Nigeria, and to that effect the President directed the Ministry to look for intervention fund and luckily the money was approved and when the Minister mentioned it people were thinking all the 13billion was for the pest control, it's not like that,  there are some other projects that requires intervention fund, fortunately  Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved the money as a cumulative sum,  but what was given to pest control was 2.8billion naira and right now we have been receiving so many reports at the state level, especially in our frontline states, Sokoto,  Kebbi,  Zamfara,  Jigawa,  Kano,  Borno, Bauchi, Gombe, Adamawa, Kastina and Yobe where we share international borders with other countries, and that's why they are very vulnerable than any other states. Rehabilitation of the abattoirs, tackling of trans-boundary disease and pest control are part of what the 13billion will be used for’’

‘’We have currently received reports of the damages done by the quelea birds and the grasshoppers on maturing rice and millet, which we are taking a frantic effort on it, right now we are trying to get the money approved to the ministry,  so that the ministry will be able to procure critical inputs for the control measures'.

Right now we are on it,  all we are just waiting for is for the fund to be released, we have our plans on ground, we need the fund to be released early because pest control activities need timeliness, and if proactive effort are not taken early,  more damages might happened on the field. If there is no fund there is no way we can carry out the operation, but I am very optimistic that the government is ready to release the money and when the money is released, our staffs are ready to go to the field for the operations’'.

The Head, Pest Control Division added that the need for many states’ government to complement the effort of the FG saying ‘’nonchalant attitudes are displayed at the state level, despite the efforts of the Federal Ministry in trying to control the situation and you know in this kind of situation all hands must be on deck, we shouldn't add politics to it or else we will deprive the common man, so we need to put aside our differences to ensure that we put in place a sustainable system’’

It will be recalled that the Minister of Agriculture announcement of N13 billion naira intervention fund to fight birds, pests and diseases had generated a lot of mixed reactions from Nigerians in view of covid-19 pandemic disease that had restricted movement of farmers from farming cum insecurity in the northern region.