The Federal Government has said that the 6,000 hectares of land in Gurara irrigation project, if fully developed and operates three cycles in a year is capable of feeding the entire North Central states.
The Minister of Water Resources, Sarah Reng Ochekpe, announced this on Thursday while inspecting the pilot irrigation project at Azara-Jere Gurara irrigation project located in Kagarko Local Government Area of Kaduna State.
Ochekpe said: “We are right here in the pilot project where 100 hectares of land has been cultivated as a demonstration to show the potential of irrigation farming in Nigeria.
“You have seen the maize farm, corn farm for animal feed and soya beans farm, all these were planted in the last three months and they are due for harvesting now.”
The minister further said that from what has been planted, it is expected that 10 tonnes of corn flower would be harvested per hectare and this is to show that if full scale irrigated farming takes off, there would be adequate food for Nigerians.
“The project under Gurara Multipurpose Dam has 6000 hectares and has the capacity to feed the whole of North Central states when every hectare is put in to use,” she said.
Ochekpe explained that apart from providing food security for the nation, the project would create many jobs for people who want to go for direct farming and those who want to go for food processing as well as those who will provide services to the farmers.
Speaking on the proposed young graduate farmers’ scheme, the Minister said: “it is in this site that we would start the graduate irrigation farmers’ scheme shortly. We will start with about 300 young graduates that are interested in farming and they would be trained on the modern way of farming. We expect that they would have jobs to do but more importantly is that they would be able to fill in the gap because most of our farmers in Nigeria are aging and we do not want a gap to be created when they all pass on.
“We need younger people to take up interest in farming so that we would be able to support our food need in Nigeria and also begin to think of exporting to other countries in the world to improve our level of income and earned additional income for the country.”
The minister added that it is the responsibility of the Water Resources Ministry to develop Infrastructures for the development of agriculture in the country, which include putting in place the necessary infrastructures for irrigation farming.
She said: “Irrigation is all about using water to support agriculture as rain-fed farming alone cannot help us in Nigeria. In order to meet up the food needs of the country, we are developing irrigation projects with necessary facilities to support Ministry of Agriculture.”
In his remarks, the Managing Director of SCC Nigeria Limited, Levy Yuval, said that they are working on 4,000 hectares, while the other 2,000 hectares are being developed by SALINI Nigeria Limited.
Yuval said: “Right now, we have completed 2,500 hectares and before the end of the year, the 4,000 hectares would be completed and handed over to the Ministry of Water Resources. The 100 hectares already in use is just to demonstrate the potential of mechanized and irrigated farming in Nigeria.”
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