NALDA set to install 3 rice mills in Adamawa State
Recovers 4000 hectares of farm estate, receives donation of 5000 hectares of land
By Gabriel Ewepu – Abuja
AREWA AGENDA- The National Agricultural Land Development Authority, NALDA, weekend, disclosed readiness to install three rice mills in Adamawa State as pasrt of the Buhari-led administration’s effort to boost food security and availability.
This was made known by the Executive Secretary, NALDA, Prince Paul Ikonne, while have an interactive session with farmers in the State.
Ikonne said: “First of all, capacity building is key for them to understand what they are doing as farmers, secondly, land preparation and thirdly the soil test and finally, value addition.
“The value addition will come in a way of rice processing mill. With the rice processing mill, it will be easy and more profitable for farmers in Adamawa State.
“We are meant to understand that Adamawa produces a lot of paddy that goes out to be processed somewhere else, so NALDA is bringing processing mills that will be in three different locations in order to process and give value to their produce.
He also assured of seed availability for farmers and also off-take the commodity by the NALDA in order for farmers to have value of what they have put in time, energy and resources.
He added that NALDA will make tractor available for them with no charges for the service.
“So, when we take it from you and pay the money required, we will process it and then sell it to the public and recover the money we gave to you.
“Those who doesn’t have tractor, NALDA will make tractor available, you are not going to pay money from it, but when are buying the products you harvested, we will minus a certain percentage of money based on the tractor you have used so that we will be able to keep the tractor going”, he said.
Meanwhile, the NALDA boss also made it known that his agency has gone ahead to recover 4000 hectares farm estate that belongs to it in the State, which also a donation of additional 5000 hectares of land in Fulfulde was received, and that it would be utilized as soon as possible.
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“We have identified the NALDA existing farm estates which is about 4,000 hectares and we have received additional land donations, yesterday we visited Fulfulde, we have received 5000 hectares donated to NALDA for farming which is a welcome development”, he said.
He also told farmers that they will be taught and shown how to make their business lucrative and comfortable as they continue with the business, and maintained that middlemen who take advantage of them would not be in the picture any more, and that era is gone, but they the farmers would be in charge of their produce and dictate the price.
“Am here in Adamawa State with a message from the President, the message says go to all the communities, develop their land and make the people rich.
“The only way to achieve that in all the communities is through agriculture, and if it is through agriculture and we are all farmers, that mean this message is for us. NALDA is back to make millionaires in all the communities in the country.
“We have to discover that the people that make money from farm produces are not the farmers. So, as NALDA, coming back as a business platform is to help you understand that what you are going is business, and when you understand it’s business, you will be able to know how much you will place on what you are producing”, he added.
Speaking on flood challenge farmers are experiencing he said the programme will go a long way to arrest the water “because we now know that rainy season will soon set in, but before then.
‘We have to make sure that when it comes, there will not be flood in that area, we are going to take the excess water, keep them and make use of them subsequently.”
The Governor of Adamawa State, Ahmadu Fintiri, who was represented by his Commissioner of Agriculture, Dr Dishi Khabe, lauded NALDA’s initiative.
Khabe said, “I want to applaud NALDA for this great task, the state government cannot do it all alone, the federal government cannot do it all alone, but if a synergy is well built between both parties, our farmers would smile a home.
“The idea of this program is to have food sufficiency in the state which is the goal of NALDA as it affects our farmers in the grassroots, and I saw when the data was collected, how it was collected, and I saw it was done to achieve its desired aim at the grassroots.
“Where NALDA thinks we can come in, on behalf of the state government, we will come in and always do that.”
Vanguard News Nigeria
Arewa Agenda is a publication of young writers and journalists from Northern Nigeria geared towards peaceful coexistence and national development through positive narratives.
