Business
Kano State Produced Five Tonnes Of Crops In 2010 – MD
Crops production in Kano State rose to five million tonnes in 2010, the Managing Director, Kano State Agricultural and Rural Development Authority (KNARDA), Alhaji Muhammed Kura, has said.
Kura told newsmen recently in Kano that the annual crop production in 2003 was only 1.9 tonnes.
He said the increase in production was due to various schemes introduced by KNARDA and the implementation of some World Bank assisted projects including the National Fadama Development Programme and the Commercial Agriculture Development Project (CADP).
He explained that the five-year poverty alleviation Fadama programme with a portfolio of 1.7 million dollars attracts an annual counterpart funding of N57 million from the state government.
“There are 86,000 hectares of Fadama land in Kano and more than 200 communities from 20 local government areas are participating in the project at the moment,“ he said
He said that more than 1.5 million beneficiaries were targeted to benefit from the programme by the end of the fifth year.
According to him, the communities are provided assorted inputs and services such as fertilisers and agrochemicals as well as equipment including irrigation pumps, irrigation wells, milling machines.
Other assets include community warehouses and the maintenance of irrigation canals, he said.
He further explained that the Commercial Agriculture Development Programme (CADP) was aimed at supporting small and medium scale farmers to commercialise their activities including production, processing and marketing.
Kura said that the CADP was targeted at three agricultural areas including rice, maize and dairy production.
“In the last one year, we have been able to support 30 small and medium enterprises with grants to enable them to adopt newly introduced technology in production and other activities.
“As part of the CADP initiave, KNARDA also provided infrastructure for producers and processors under the ‘Farm Eergy and Farm Access Roads Scheme’, he said.
The managing director said that a number of rice processing clusters had been surveyed and would be provided with alternative energy sources.
According to him, five different farm access roads covering a total of 80 kms will also be constructed in the state.