Kaduna State Chapter of the Wheat Farmers Association of Nigeria commended the Federal Government on Sunday in Zaria, Kaduna State, for subsidizing inputs for dry season wheat farming.
The Federal Government subsidises dry season wheat farming inputs by 50 percent under its National Agricultural Growth Scheme and Agro Pocket (NAGS –AP) initiative.
For dry season wheat farming, a beneficiary is required to deposit N180,500, representing 50 percent of the total cost of the inputs to qualify for the subsidy.
Chairman of the farmers’ association, Bashir Tanko, said that many beneficiaries had received alerts for the redemption of the inputs at designated areas in Kaduna State.
He noted, however, that a larger number of wheat farmers could not afford the mandatory N180,500 (50 percent) deposit to qualify for the subsidy.
“Most members already planted wheat in anticipation of government’s intervention to augment their personnel efforts. Most of them had exhausted significant amount of their resources.
“Since they could not benefit from the subsidy, they would continue to use their personal resources,” Tanko said.
He dismissed fears that the inputs could end up in the hands of non-wheat farmers because NAGS-AP had relegated the association.
“We assume the relegation of the association was based on the poor recovery of money earlier given to wheat farmers through the association under the Anchor Borrowers programme,” Tanko said.
He assured government that the association would not relent in efforts to recover the total amount given to wheat farmers and urged other stakeholders not to regard it as a bad debtor.
He also urged the Federal Government to give the association a second chance and a benefit of the doubt, stressing that it would not disappoint its benefactor.
