BY SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
The Enugu State Ministry of Agriculture and Agro-Industrialization says it has registered over 60,000 farmers within the last 18 months in its ongoing farmers registration.
The Commissioner for the Ministry, Dr Patrick Ubru, told newsmen in Enugu on Sunday that the over 60,000 farmers are duly verified with vital details such as verifiable residential and farm addresses.
He said that “the ongoing diligent registration” was the first mandate given to the ministry by Gov. Peter Mbah.
The commissioner noted that Gov. Mbah wanted to ensure that genuine farmers were identified and given necessary inputs and technical support to make agriculture a “big business in the state”.
According to Ubru, the ministry collected their National Identity Numbers (NINs); cell-phone numbers; the farming cooperative society they belong to (if they belong); and the capacity of the farming they are current involved in.
“We also classified the agricultural practice they engaged in such as: plantations of various economic crops/plants; crop farming such as tubers, cereals, vegetables and spices; exotic plant/horticulture; animal husbandry, poultry and fishery among others.
“We also registered agro-industrialists such as middlemen and women in value-chain addition; produce middle market men and women as well as produce off-takers as well.
“The ministry also sends its staff to do secret verification to locate the claimed farm or agriculture practice sites most times,” he said.
Ubru noted that the Gov. Mbah administration had effectively stopped the issue of “political farmers” with the ongoing registration.
He said that previously, political farmers, with no farms or idea of farming, held sway in the state without any actual farming activities.
The commissioner said that the political farmers’ activities drove away the real farmers, and the support supposed to be given to them directly was diverted.
He said, “At a time before the emergence of Gov. Mbah, most genuine farmers lost interest in farming, as no government input and technical support was given to them.
“Today, we have real farmers and our agriculture-loving governor has increased funding in agriculture activities and food production.
“Gov. Mbah is doing this through robust farmers’ participation in state-fashioned agricultural and agro-industrialisation programmes as well as in Federal and international institutions agricultural programmes and projects.”
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