Niger Coordinator, Fadama NG- Cares
The Niger State Fadama NG- Cares will continue to do its best to develop the Agricultural Sector in line with the New Niger Agenda of Farmer Mohammed Umar Bago’s administration.
The Niger State Project Coordinator, Shehu Mohammed Kudu disclosed this during a chat with Journalist recently in Minna, Niger State Capital.
Kudu stated that the Free Tractors Service Scheme and other laudable initiatives anchored by Fadama NG- Cares were presently playing a vital role towards the enhancement of Agricultural products of the peasant Farmers across Niger State.
No doubt, the tractor Free Service Scheme has changed the narrative of Farming as more farmers have expanded their farm sizes towards Mechanized scale. Kudu declared
He however added that following the zealous demand of Farmers for Free Tractors service scheme which makes the system cumbersome for Government, the NG-CARES was arranging to charge tokens on the use of the Tractors for cushioning the effect on fueling and cost of drivers.
He said although Fadama NG- Cares gets 100 percent support from the Niger State Government, the demand for Free tractor Services by Farmers across Niger State is far beyond what the Agency Budget can handle.
According to the Niger State Project Coordinator, the Fadama NG- Cares must scale-up their budget in order to cater for the demand of Farmers in the State.
The coordinator buttress further with emphasizes on N- CARES Result Area 2 interventions in the State , which are in four Disbursement Link Indicators (DLIs).
Pointing out that in the area of DLI 2.1 (Provision of Agricultural Inputs and Services) for example, the number of Farmers we had on our support list before now was 45,000 but as of today we have 70,000 intending beneficiaries.
While in the area of DLI 2.2 ( Provision of Improve Agricultural Infrastructure) what we have in the past was 57,000 farmers requesting for our support but today the number have increased to 90,000.
Similarly, in the area of DLI 2.3 (Provision of Agricultural Assets and small primary processing equipments) it was 13,700 farmers before now, presently we have 50, 000 farmers registered with NG cares seeking for support to grow their Farm.
The Niger State Project Coordinator of Fadama NG- Cares emphasized that with DLI 2.4, (Rehabilitation of Wet market with water and Sanitary facilities) people from the 25 local Government Areas are requesting for Wet market to provide for Borehole, Toilets and other necessary facilities to which he said they are going to respond accordingly.
However, when I came into office, Kudu said he saw the need to streamline the distribution of agricultural inputs which were initially done haphazardly.
This is because in the previous system, many Farmers were short-changed as collections of materials was done through group making the farmers lost out.
In the current system Farmers collect materials individually making it all inclusive for them. the coordinator declared.