The speaker, Katsina state House of Assembly, Alhaji Tasiu Musa Maigari, has said adequate budgetary allocation to the agriculture sector was one of the major factors that would boost agricultural production in the country.
He stated this Friday in Kano at a workshop organised by the European Union OXFAM and Agric Advocacy, disclosing that the Katsina state government planned to spend N10 billion on agriculture in 2020.
According to him, agriculture is one of the major sources of income and livelihood in the state, and that 80 per cent of the people living in Katsina are farmers.
In his remarks, the project coordinator, Mr Abubakar Sa’idu, said the workshop was aimed at providing support the government’s agricultural priority to boost smallholder farmers productivity in Katsina state.
He said the workshop tagged “Agricultural Budget Priorities Workshop” would pave the way for creating suitable avenues of increasing budgetary allocations in the agriculture sector in Katsina state, aimed at achieving the desired goals.
“In the coming 2020 budget, agriculture project in Katsina should have a priority of the government,” he said.
One of the participants, the national vice-chairman of Miyatti Allah Kautalhore, Labdo Usman-Muhammad, called on the Katsina state government to improve nomadic education in order to curtail the menace of illiteracy among nomads.
Earlier, the national chairman of the Katsina state branch of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Alhaji Sani Danja, called on the federal government to devise a means of informing farmers what they do in Federal Ministry of Agriculture.
He urged the House of Assembly to enact a law to provide six metres of road for pastoralists to pass with their cattle to avoid any clash with farmers.
