20 January 2004
Jigawa State government and the African Development Foundation (ADF) are to spend one million dollars to develop gum Arabic production in the state.
Governor Saminu Turaki made the disclosure in Kazaure at the weekend when he visited the state Research Institute, saying the ADF would provide 700,000 dollars, while the Jigawa government would invest 300,000 dollars on the project.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the money from the ADF would be from a five million-dollar grant offered the state two years ago, of which only one million dollars was utilised for community empowerment projects.
Turaki, who led the ADF President, Mr Nathaniel Fields, to the institute, said the Jigawa government had spent more than 300,000 dollars on enhancing gum Arabic production in the state.
The Secretary of the institute, Malam Ma'amun Aliyu, had earlier disclosed that some five million tree seedlings have been raised last year as part of efforts to boost the economic potential of communities in the state.
He said while most of the seedlings were planted by farmers across the state, the institute on its own had set up 100 hectares of gum Arabic plantation in three locations in the state.
Jigawa, which has about 900 hectares of gum Arabic plantations, has established a laboratory to process the product, and entered into an agreement with some U.S. companies to export the commodity.
However, inadequate funds had affected the procurement of the commodity from the farmers, while staff of the Gum Arabic Processing Company (GAPCO) have been left without salaries for 10 months.
Turaki, however, said he believed the injection of the capital from the ADF would facilitate increased production capacity of the farmers and the status of the company, as well as provide for a greater expansion of the total production capacity of the state.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2004 Daily Trust. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
