Benue farmers begin planting

Farmers in Benue State have commenced planting of various crops at their farms as the rainy season sets in.

This is even as the state government has declared Fridays work-free to enable civil servants go back to till the land in their different localities so as to encourage reliance on agriculture in the face of the nation’s dwindling oil fortune.

A large scale farmer in Makurdi, Vitalis Ternongo, who has just planted maize at one of his farms, sitting on two hectares of land, said that he could have planted the crop earlier than now but for the rains which started rather late this year.

Ternongo noted that the maize he planted were specially ordered from an India seeds company and highly resistant to the strange army worms attack which destroyed his farm last year and resulted into poor maize harvest in all 23 local government areas of the state.

He, however, worried over the challenges of other farm inputs which costs have risen above the reach of many farmers, lamenting that the government had not done enough to encourage the average farmers in the state.

“The challenge lies in the high cost of inputs in the markets. As we speak, I don’t even know whether farmers would get fertilisers this year and government has not helped matters at all. I have applied for loan from a commercial bank for two consecutive years now but no response despite my being a member of AFAN which has also not cared about us,” Ternongo said.

Similarly, Aboje Ogli, opined that due to the rains which started behind the usual season in the state this year, he had just began to plant yam, maize and beans at his farms located in OtadaOtukpo area of the state.

Ogli said he had not made any attempt to acquire loan for his inputs but that he had access to limited bags of fertilisers through his personal efforts and that he intends to procure necessary pesticides to avoid a repeat experience of worm attack which destroyed his maize farm last season.

For John Asongo, a farmer in North bank axis of Makurdi, whose maize and yam were planted two weeks ago, the challenge remains access to acquire loan to enable him purchase necessary inputs for his farms.

He said: “When you hear the government advertising these loans, you would think it is so cheap to acquire but the reverse is the case. I have stopped believing them on loan matters and the much talk about support for agriculture, it is just lip service.”

But, state chairman of All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Comrade Aondona Hembe Kula, explained that the available loans for farmers in the state was linked to the anchor borrowers programme tied to the production of rice and soybean.

Though, Kula said that the association was presently waiting for inputs from some partnership organisations as nothing was yet coming from the government circle, he however expressed optimism for better yields ahead of the crops such as cassava, rice, soybean, maize among others already planted by farmers across the state.

According to him, the rice and soybean anchor borrower programme for this year targets 20,000 farmers in the state, adding that more awareness was needed to increase the number of 4,000 beneficiaries which participated last year against the initial 15,000 farmers targeted during that season.

He further appealed to unregistered farmers with AFAN in the state to acquaint themselves with the other 2,000 different commodities members of the association in order to easily access loan facilities from designated banks.

“We (AFAN) are the one to introduce the farmers to the banks for access to loans,” Kula added.