Rice Farming: Niger State commends Federal government’s intervention

Rice farmers in Niger State North Central Nigeria have commended the ongoing agricultural revolution programme by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The Chairman of the Rice farmers association in Niger State, Alhaji Idris Abini said rice farmers in the state have benefited tremendously from the various platforms such as Central Bank of Nigeria, Bank of Agriculture and the Unity Bank agricultural intervention in the State.

 “The Banks took their time to issue operational guide times, got involved in some hard to handle aspects of the programme like farm-land-mappings, screening of farmers names and provision and distribution of inputs to farmers,” said AbiniAbini.

The Niger state RIFAN Chairman, who mentioned this in a meeting held in Minna, the Niger State Capital on Monday,  said rice farmers in the state have so far benefited from inputs worth between N70,000 and N270,000.

“The challenge before all of us is that the management of the Banks and RIFAN have fulfilled their own part of the obligation by processing and forwarding the necessary agricultural inputs to the farmers”.

Idris, who commended the rice farmers association in the state for putting in place measures to recover loans disbursed from  45,000 beneficiaries, decried the non-payment of the loan by some beneficiaries and further urged the rice farmers to be fair to the programme in ensuring prompt payment of the various loans collected for their benefit.

Nnenna.O