Yam: FG ready to check beetle disease, promises support for flood affected farmers

The Federal Government (FG) has said that frantic effort is being put in place to control infestation of beetle on yam, while also promises incentives for those affected by the pest and flood.

This support according to a reliable source in the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) is said to be coming on the heels of farmers’ cry on the negative effect of beetle infection on yams which has short changed many farmers of their profits even as many were affected with the recent flood. These farmers are particularly from Taraba and Benue states.

 Reliably, Food Farm News gathered that the Agriculture Minister, Alhaji Sabo-Nanono has ordered an immediate solution to end the beetle infestation in the affected states just as he promised to give incentives to farmers who lost their yams to the pest and those farms that are destroyed by recent flood.

Our source told us that plan has already been concluded by the ministry towards empowering yam farmers with flash dryers and dry season micro- tuber  for both yam producers and processors, added that this is a  determination towards deploying improved technology into farming eco system in Nigeria towards higher productivity. 

One of the farmers named Mr. Utah Tor-Biliji from Taraba state said the impact of beetle infestation on yam was very destructive with serious limitation on productivity saying that ‘’ farmers are bitterly complaining on the damages the pest had caused farmers. We have been told to try different herbicide for the pest to disappear, but it seems they are not working. We have also sourced for the support from different quarters in states and FMARD for us to know the solution to the infestation on yam’’ 

 Biliji pointed that the holes made on the yams by the beetle prevented yams’ farmers from selling at a good price as the holes on the body made them marketable.. He therefore advises that government must do the needful towards ensuring that the production of quality yam is not stalled by beetle infestation. 

In another development, the National President of the National Yam Processors and Marketers Association of Nigeria, Prof. Simon Itwange has said that yam would no longer be sold by size or number in the market, but will henceforth be sold by weight. He made the disclosure during a recently held event in Abuja.

Itwange disclosed that discussion is already on between the association and Federal Ministry of Industry Trade and Investment ( FMITI) towards ensuring the deployment of scale  measurement in the various market places to sell yam rather than in the old tradition of selling in number pieces, adding that selling by weight using scale  would not only give value to the Nigerian yam, but also help farmers earn more than they have done in years.

Food Farm News checks on the Deputy Director Enforcement, Standards & Metrological Data Division, Weight and Measures Department, FMITI, Mr. Salim Muktar confirmed that the use of weight to measure yams before sale was longed overdue, adding that plan was already in progress to make such as being done in Shoprites across the nation. 

Mukta said that a technical committee has been set up to make the process of selling yam by weight a  reality in our market places, adding that the country was currently left behind in the production of the produce as compared to  the strides made by Ghana in this direction. 

A visit to Karimo market in Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, revealed that yam sellers are disposed to the idea of using weight scale to sell as long as it would add value to their economic status.

  A yam seller, Mrs. Ishak Amina disclosed that selling of yams in numbers did not bring much gain to her and others because there was any accurate measurement to ensure such coupled the fact that most buyers want to pick the bigger yams at lesser price thereby leaving behind the smaller ones which scale measurement would have checkmated with accurate pricing with any party being cheated.

Amina said that ‘’ if government succeeded in introducing the use of weigh to sell yam in the open market, sellers will become millionaires, buy cars and build houses, unlike what we have now and this will help to change how people see yam in the country’’

Another yam seller, Mr. Bashir Ahmed told our correspondent that the use of weight to sell yams in the market places would economically empower sellers as standard measurement of pricing is being applied for both the sellers and the buyers.