By Ben Ngwakwe, Gombe
Agriculture is the mainstay of the economy and is only the sector that can greatly help in revamping the economy and remains the veritable tool for tackling food insecurity in the country, says Gombe Governor Muhammadu Yahaya.
Speaking in Gombe when the National Coordinator, Nigeria Women for Agricultural Progressive Development Initiative, (NWAODI) paid a courtesy call in the state.
The Governor represented by his Deputy Governor, Manassah Jatau said the administration will continue to accord priority attention to Agriculture in view of it’s numerous advantages of job creation, food sufficiency, and overall socio-economic development of the people.
According to him, “Gombe State is blessed with abundant agricultural potentials and given the necessary commitment from all stakeholders, hunger and food insecurity would be under control.”
“This government has accorded priority attention to Agriculture and mobilizing necessary resources to overcome challenges facing agriculture by ensuring that food sufficiency is achieved.
” Gombe State is blessed with abundant agricultural resources and our administration is leveraging on this advantages to accord Agriculture a great priority. About 70 per cent of our population is engaged in agriculture. Agriculture is the only remedy out of this economic turbulence. Agriculture is also facing challenges but with your involvement a lot of progresses will be recorded.
“The challenges we are facing is associated with funds, inputs, fertilizers, etc but the greatest one is climate change which comes with less amount of rainfall. But with these frustrations I implore you to look elsewhere. You should encourage the women to go into irrigation farming which is more reliable,” he said.
He explained that the administration is also taking maximum advantage of Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones ( SAPZ) program, a United States sponsored program to making use of the entire agricultural value chain for revenue generation and overall development.
“Governor Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya’s administration has introduced the Cassava farming program, where all local government areas including women will be involved in cassava towards solving food and hunger problems,” he said
Yahaya challenged the women, especially those in Gombe to key into the NWAPDI program and other policies aimed at encouraging women involvement in agriculture towards achieving the needed objectives.
Also, the National Coordinator, Nigeria Women for Agricultural Progressive Development Initiative (NWAPDI), Farmer Omolara Svensson said they were in the state to officially introduce the program to the state and Local Government coordinators as well as to sensitize them on their activities.
She said the program is an all encompassing one involving not only the farmers but all women who engaged in the whole agricultural value chain including farmers, processors, exporters, traders,etc.
She solicited for partnership with the state government, noting that taking advantage of the fact that Gombe State is fertile for the cultivation of every type of crop. She expressed optimism that with the partnership and the involvement of all, there shall be more job creation and food insecurity shall end.
She added that the outfit has a functional structure covering all the states of the federation and the 774 local governments including the physically challenged Women.
