FCT farmers get N24m soybeans inputs

Th e Farmers Empowerment Association (FEA), Abuja, an umbrella body of the whole farmers cooperatives in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), has distributed N24 million worth of soybeans inputs to it members for the planting season.

Speaking with Blueprint during the distribution exercise at the Anon plaza, Gudu district, recently, the FEA President, Mr Obaje Omobolaji David, said the association is giving seeds to 10 persons per cooperative and that 120 cooperatives are participating across the six Area Councils in the FCT.

“We are giving inputs out to1, 200 farmers, each farmers gets one bag per hectare, and we have a task force team in place to monitor the implementation.

Th e task force would also serve as extension workers that would provide the farmers with technical help.

“ Th is is because, the farmers have experienced lots of disappointment from the necessary agencies responsible for this.

So we are working hard to ensure that the program succeeds.

“Every year, government agencies disappoints farmers and that is making them to loss trust on government’s programs,” he lamented Th e Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) he revealed did not support the farmers under the Anchor Borrowers Program, with the excuse that the planting season is over.

“Th e CBN said it was too late to farm soybeans, but NiMET, the only agencies that is certifi ed on weather monitoring gave us a written report that, we can go ahead to plant soybeans in the FCT as it is now.

So we are fi red up to begin planting, we have sent the report to the CBN, BOA, FCT minister, but we are appealing to the FCT minister to help the farmers in the territory access the Anchor Borrowers fund.

He is the governor of FCT and the success of agriculture in FCT will go to him.

“It is time the act of giving false promising to farmers for assistance, yet blaming them for failure is over, we are working to ensure that this programme succeeds,” he said.

He said the attitude of CBN offi cial to the FCT farmers who want to access the Anchor Borrowers fund does not show that they are really willing to allow FCT farmers benefi t from the fund.

“Th is input does not come from the Anchor Borrowers programme, we as association sourced this input ourselves to ensure that we fulfi l our promises to our members to some extents.

“Th e whole input cost N24 million of soybeans seeds.

And we are looking at 10 persons per cooperative, while about 120 cooperatives are participating across the six area council in the FCT.

“ We hope that in the next one week, CBN would have done the needful and release the funds to the farmers to continue work, he said.

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