The Governor of Kaduna State, Patrick Ibrahim Yakowa has charged his fellow northern governors to pay very special attention to agricultural development especially peasant agriculture
Speaking in an interview with LEADERSHIP Correspondent in the United States recently, the governor said agriculture should be given priority consideration in order to increase the income of peasant farmers.
Yakowa said that to actualise this, the State government had concluded plans to distribute almost 200 tractors to cooperative societies across the State. The governor said that it was part of his was efforts to boost food security and in fulfilment of one of the major promises he made during his election campaigns.
He added that ensuring food security would reduce the rate of crimes in the state, and said that man’s problem was half solved when there was adequate food supply.
His words: “We are collaborating with the federal ministry of agriculture in order to introduce tractorization Scheme into the state. We are hoping that very soon I am going to launch about 200 tractors that will be distributed to cooperative societies in different parts of the State to improve agriculture and to assist us in food security”
The governor further maintained that the issue of poverty was not restricted to the north alone, and stressed that this would increase the standard of living of everybody.
“One of our areas of special interest is agriculture. Kaduna is an agricultural state and it maintains tremendous potentials for agriculture. You can get all types of crops there, maize for consumption, ginger for local use and also for export and so many other crops. This made us to pay very special attention to the issue of agriculture,” Yakowa said.
He disclosed that he had been able to acquire substantial quantity of fertiliser that were distributed to farmers last year, noting that the distribution of fertiliser for ongoing farming season was progressing in all the local governments of the State.
‘‘The whole intention is to substantially increase production of all the different crops. We have also tried to introduce mechanisation because presently the production is very low with the kind of small scale farming,” he said.