Hassan A. Karofi
2 January 2009
Food security receives the highest budgetary allocation of N9.76 billion from its 2009 appropriations bill presented by Governor Ibrahim Shekarau to the state House of Assembly on Wednesday.
Shekarau said as the most productive sector of the economy, his administration has deemed it fit to prioritise the production of food and commercial crops in the state in view of the comparative advan-tage in dams and related agriculture infrastructure in the state.
He said the state government has entered into an agreement with MARDITECH Corporation of Malaysia for the carrying out of technical studies that will enable the state to harness its abundant water and land resources for the benefit of the people.
He said the agreement will see to the provision of sufficient data that will allow for rehabilitation of dams and for irrigation infrastruc-ture that will provide 9000 hectares of irrigable land available for paddy rice production in 2009.
"Despite having more dams than any state in the federation, yet these dams are in dire need of repair and they lack instrumentation and comprehensive data including survey maps that would enable the construction of vast irrigation infrastructure and there is no comprehensive soil classification that will allow for optimal use of land of the state", he said.
Shekarau also said N6 billion will be expended on the dams rehabilitation and the paddy rice production as part of ongoing efforts to ensure food security, enhance economic development and ensure the protection of the citizenry from associated deficiencies in lack of food.
He said farmers in the state this year would be provided with improved rice seedlings under the pilot rice project that would be processed, packaged and distributed to farmers for use during the 2009 production season.
Additionally, the governor said N1.5 billion would be spent this year for the procurement of assorted fertilizer, while N200 million will equally be spent on the purchase of 500 tons of assorted improved seeds as well as 130,000 liters of agrochemicals.
While assuring the people of the state on food production for sustainability, the governor said 30,000 hectares management training plots across the state would be sourced for use by farmers, stressing that N225 million have been set aside to procure assorted grains to replenish the state stock under the grains buffer stock program.
"In addition to the above, we are working with Fadama users to raise their productivity and incomes and to reduce fadama resource conflict under the National Fadama Development Project supported by the World Bank", he said.
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