NECAS urges FG to intervene in buying-off farmers harvests

The North East Commodity Association has urged the Federal Government to intervene in purchasing grains harvested by farmers under the Anchor Borrowers Programme, to ensure its sustainability.
The National Chairman of the association implementing the Anchor Borrowers Programme in the North east, Alhaji Sadiq Daware, made the call on Friday in an interview with newsmen in Yola.
Daware said farmers that participated in the programme in the North east had flooded the association’s warehouses with their produce but that the body could not dispose of them due to the current low price of grains.
He said the Federal Ministry of Agriculture needed to intervene by buying off the produce at a good price, to enable farmers make profit and remain committed to the programme.
He said: “Our first challenge now is the market and we have substantial produce in our warehouses in Taraba, Gombe, Bauchi, Adamawa, Yobe and Borno states.
“The market price now is not encouraging and if you did not buy it off them at good price, farmers will not have the interest to go back to their farms.
“The Federal Ministry of Agriculture should come and buy off the produce so that farmers can go back to their farms.”
He also urged the Nigerian Customs Service to do more in containing the activities of rice smugglers, who constituted a major threat to the programme.
Daware, who was in Yola for the stakeholders meeting on the 2019 wet season farming, said the association was targeting 300,000 farmers in the sub region for the wet season cropping on six commodities of rice, soya-beans, cotton, sesame, sorghum and maize.
He assured the timely distribution of seedlings and other inputs to farmers, adding that extension workers were also engaged and provided with mobility by the association to train farmers and advise them on best farming practices.
Daware, who described the anchor borrowers programme as one of the best things that happened to Nigerian farmers, said the association was happy that President Muhammadu Buhari was re-elected, guaranteeing the continuity of the programme and other agricultural interventions.
He said: “As farmers who are benefiting from this anchor borrowers programme, we see President Buhari as a father and our dear Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emiefele, as his first son.
He added: “We are happy Buhari is back and we hope Emiefele too will return with him.”