The Enugu State Commissioner for Agriculture and Agroindustrialisation, Mr Patrick Ubru, says only registered farmers will procure subsidised farm inputs from the state government.
Ubru disclosed this while speaking on Thursday in Enugu.
He said the office was opened for farmers in the state to register, especially as the state was preparing for pre-farming training to launch the state into new farming season.
According to him, the essence of the registration is to separate real farmers from political farmers.
The commissioner stressed that at the end of the training, inputs like seedlings, fertilizers, sprayers and others would be distributed to those who register.
“This is why we are doing validation of farmers after registration to ensure the farm they claimed to have actually belonged to, so that during distribution, we’ll go back to our database.
“The registration narrows down our work and ensuring that we don’t deal with the political farmers,” he said.
He added that in March, the ministry distributed solar-enabling pumping machines and others to farmers for dry-season farming.
“We are doing a lot; few days ago, I was at Isi Uzo Council Area for sensitisation of rural farmers in the area. These are part of our preparation for new farming season.
“In Nkanu East Council Area, we have deployed our men there to teach farmers on good agricultural practices as the area has potential for rice production, and we are building 20 tons of rice mills in Owo,” he said.
The commissioner also called for an increase in the production of soya beans and maize as well as encouraging the use of cassava pills to make feed and another part of cassava, to reduce the prices of feeds for livestock.
“In Enugu State, one of our major crops is cassava, and we cultivated over 500 hectares of cassava for bioethanol value chain development which Enugu State is a pilot for the project.
“There’s need to encourage private individuals to establish feed mills in the state to help push down prices and remove cost of transporting them to Enugu,” he said.
(NAN)
