Jigawa State has announced the successful cultivation of 50,000 hectares of wheat in the 2023/2024 dry season, surpassing its initial target of 40,000 hectares.
This was made known by Governor Umar Namadi during a visit to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security in Abuja, yesterday.
The ministry had last November commenced the pilot cultivation of the targeted 250,000 hectares of wheat production for the 2023 dry-season farming in Kadume, Hadejia local government area of Jigawa State.
The governor attributed the achievement to the support and collaboration of the federal government and other partners under the National Agricultural Growth Scheme and Agro-Pocket Project (NAGS&AP).
Mamadi revealed that the state has introduced a rice millionaires programme to empower graduates in rice farming and has also employed 1,400 extension workers to train farmers in the state.
Earlier, minister of agriculture and food security, Abubakar Kyari highlighted some of the challenges faced by the agricultural sector, such as reported cases of round-tripping in connivance with agro-dealers and poor validation of farmers’ data in parts of the participating states.
He said that the ministry was fully committed to addressing these issues and implementing stringent measures in the forthcoming dry/wet season farming for rice, maize and cassava, to ensure transparent distribution and target genuine farmers.
Kyari said that the ministry was focused on ramping up massive production of staple crops using technology and mechanisation to achieve this goal.
He added that the ministry was fully aligned with the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Tinubu and was poised to implement its programme in line with his vision for the agricultural sector.
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