Perm Sec Decries Under-Utilisation Of Farmlands In Jigawa

The Permanent Secretary of Jigawa State Ministry of Agriculture, Alhaji Muhammad Idris, says that over four million hectares of arable lands in Jigawa State are not utilised for agricultural activities,

Idris, who revealed this in Dutse recently at a workshop on agricultural processing, said that available statistics in the ministry indicated that only 300,000 hectares of lands were under cultivation.

He said that the statistics also showed that only three per cent of lands demarcated for irrigation farming were utilised for agriculture.

“Despite the abundance land and water, the resources are not utilised.

“Agriculture provides more than 80 per cent of employment in the state but farmers are largely practising subsistence farming,’’ he said.

Idris, however, said that the state government had adopted proactive measures to improve agriculture, encourage productivity and enhance effective utilisation of land and water resources.

The permanent secretary said that some of the measures included the revitalisation of Jigawa Agricultural Supply Company (JASCO) and the distribution of fertiliser to farmers at subsidised rates.

Idris said that JASCO had extended its outreach to all the 27 local government areas of the state so as to ensure adequate supply of fertiliser, improved seeds, chemicals and other farm inputs to farmers.

He said that the state government had also distributed 5,000 work bulls to farmers to promote animal traction, while enhancing extension services to encourage agricultural production.

In his remark, Alhaji Abdulkareem Hussein, the Director-General, Jigawa Chamber of Commerce, Mines, Industry and Agriculture (JICCIMA), said that the workshop was designed to expose farmers to modern processing and packaging techniques.

He noted that the state government had given farmers’ training a priority attention so as to develop the farmers’ entrepreneurial skills and encourages agricultural processing at the grassroots.

Hussein said that the chamber had adopted effective measures to stimulate investment in agricultural sector.

Our correspondent reports that more than 200 participants drawn from farmers’ associations attended the workshop.