Farmers canvass scrapping of GES scheme

Some farmers in Lagos on Thursday called for the scrapping of the Growth Enhancement Support Scheme because of the perceived fraud it encourages in the agricultural sector.
The farmers told the News Agency of Nigeria in Lagos that the scheme did not adequately attend to the needs of farmers in the country.
Temitope Odetola, the President of the Association for Youths Unity in Agriculture, said the scheme was intended to address proper circulation of farming inputs.
Odetola, however, decried the inadequacies that befell the programme, stating that the 500 juveniles and five bags of fish feeds for fish farmers did not meet their needs.
He said: “If I must speak honestly, I will say that the GES Scheme should be scrapped because the programme did not get to real farmers.
“When it started, we were hopeful, but Agro dealers could not meet up with the inputs because of some challenges that were inherent in the system.
“Since 2015, we have not heard about the programme.
“If really it impacted on farmers, you would have heard of the call that farmers are waiting for government to start distribution.
“However, that is not the case because they do not need it.”
A lettuce farmer, Tayo Aboh, said the programme had not really affected real farmers who needed the empowerment.
Aboh said most people who got the call to visit designated agro dealers for fertilisers and feeds, were not farmers.
She said: “I remember in 2014, a friend of mine called and said she got a call to come for 10 bags of fertilisers in Ikorodu and I began to wonder.
“Only some few farmers in the state were able to access the inputs but, mind you, the programme would have brought some respite to the farming communities in the state.
“However, I will say that if at all they want to restart the programme, government should do an overhauling of the system.
“Otherwise, they should scrap it.”
A vegetable farmer in Ota, Ogun State, Samson Ude, called for total revamping of the agro processors in the state to properly distribute inputs to real farmers.
Ude said: “It is sad to say that during the time when the programme was actively running, not all farmers benefited.
“Let’s just say that out of 10 farmers, only two or three were beneficiaries.”
NAN reports that the GES was a programme under the Agriculture Transformation agenda of the immediate-past administration in 2011.
The programme was meant to provide stability in the distribution of inputs such as fertilisers, fish feeds, juvenile’s distribution, with a target of 40 million farmers in four years.
This would increase productivity of farmers across the country to use fertilisers from 13kg per hectare to 50kg per hectare and for farmers to access inputs at affordable rates.
Olufunmilola Olusanya, the Lagos State Director, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, said nothing had been distributed since 2015.
Olusanya hoped that farmers in the state would not be left out when the government begins distribution soon.
NAN.