Over Five thousand peasant farmers have benefited from the free tractor services of Niger State Fadama Coordinating Office during the last farming season in the three Senatorial zones of the state.
The State Fadama Project Coordinator Alhaji Shehu Kudu Mohammed, disclosed this when the State officials of the Nigeria Union of Journalists NUJ, paid him a courtesy visit in his office in Minna.
The state coordinator said the federal government through Fadama, had implemented various programmes to mitigate the effects of COVID19 pandemic on poor Nigerians, including Niger State.
He explained that the agency under the Area two programme with four components, had assisted farmers with inputs, fertilizers, chemicals and seeds free of charge, in addition to the provision of implements for poultry and fish farming activities.
Under the Fadama Delivery leave indicator DLI, Alhaji Kudu Mohammed, said the agency assisted farmers with various bags of rice, maize, sorghum and fertilizer while poor poultry farmers were given 50 day old chicks, bags of feeds and drugs to start their business to become self reliant.
Also, the agency assisted a cluster of ten farmers each with solar power irrigation pumps as it constructed feeder roads, culverts and mini bridges to ease transportation of farm produce.
He then assured that the agency would carry Journalists along in its programmes and urged them to give their activities the needed publicity for the benefit of the rural farmers.
Earlier the State Chairman of NUJ Comrade Abu Nmodu, said the visit was to strengthen the long standing relationship with the agency to enable more rural farmers benefit from its laudable programmes.
Comrade Abu Nmodu stressed the need for the agency to include journalists in its activities as many of them were into farming.
He stated that Fadama would be able to accomplish more of its programs of enhancing the living standard of rural people with effective collaboration with the union, assuring that NUJ was ready to work towards that.
The State Chairman of NUJ then commended the organization for its interventions especially in the areas of infrastructural development and provision of free agricultural inputs to peasant farmers in the state.
