By Moh Bello Habib
Zaria
Department for International Development (DFID), through a non-governmental organisation (NGO), GEMS4, has donated 1, 000 crates worth N2.7 million to Kaduna state tomato farmers for easy transportation of the commodity from the North to other parts of the country.
Presenting the crates to the state government for onward distribution the farmers at the Kaduna State Cooperative Institute, Ikara, yesterday, business coordinator of the NGO, Mr. Jerome Kaka, said the crates were designed in such a way to reduce incessant losses suffered by the farmers in transporting the produce from the North to western and eastern parts of the country, as well as maximising their profits.
“Our farmers experience great loss in transporting tomato from in normal basket but with development our farmers will have more profit than loss,” he said.
The coordinator while them to judiciously use the commodity (crates) and accept it on good face, adding that it was now high time to think of progress and graduate from use of baskets.
Kaka pointed out that the crates would last as long as many year unlike baskets which expired in within few trips.
Receiving the commodity, on behalf of the farmers, the Governor, Malam Nasir Ahmed El-Rufa’I, gave the assurance that farmer would make best use of the commodity to improve tomato farming in the state.
The governor, represented by the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Dr AbdulKadir Kasim, said the state government would think any possible way to obtain the commodity (the crates) and sell them to the farmers in subsidised price as it was costly than the normal basket considering the fact our tomato farmers mostly were low-income individuals.
El-Rufa’i, therefore, urged the farmers to double their efforts in tomato farming, saying the country depended on tomato produce in the North, and the state in particular.
