In a bid to boost food production in the country, the federal government has indicated interest to partner with private investors in the area of irrigation in order to achieve food sufficiency.
The Minister of State, Agriculture and Rural Development, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, disclosed this in Abuja when he received a delegation of Future Pump Limited, led by the Managing Director, EuroBase Ltd, Mr. Don Ekesiobi.
Lokpobiri who thanked the delegation for indicating interest to partner with the ministry in area of Agriculture, said the federal government would be interested in partnering with the company provided the solar pumping machine is durable and affordable.
On his part, Mr Ekesiobi said the machine is environmental friendly with clean source of power, cost effective, durable and extremely rugged with almost zero maintenance and has a five- year warranty for the users.
Don explained that with the technology, solar pumping machine would address the problem of lack of access to energy that usually constrain farmers from irrigation facilities which are essential for agriculture.
Also speaking, the Managing Director of the Future Pump Company, Mr. Toby Hammond noted that some of the benefits of using the pump for irrigation farming would include using of no fuel or electricity cost.
He added; “Future Pump is of two types which include SFI and SF2; the SF2 is more preferable because it is a robust surface pump designed to help smallholder farmers with shallow water sources pump up to 1 litre per second to water their crops using the power of the sun.”
