Registration: Edo Targets 150,000 Farmers

Edo Government yesterday said it would register 150,000 farmers under the Federal Government’s Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA).

The Commissioner for Agriculture in the state, Mr Abdul Oroh, disclosed this to newsmen in Auchi.

He said that 75,000 farmers had been registered under the first and the second phase of the programme.

He said that only about 35,000 farmers were registered in the first phase of the exercise, attributing such to lack of awareness on the programme.

“Farmers are not aware of the essence of the registration, they thought it is for the purpose of taxation and they ran from it.

“Now that they know the importance, my office has been inundated with request for more forms. We have exhausted all the forms earlier brought to the state and we are waiting for more.

“What we did upon receipt of these forms was to distribute them to the 192 wards of the state to ensure success of the registration.

“We are now taking the issue of agriculture as business. Aside providing food, we want to use agriculture to expand the state tax net, provide more income for farmers and jobs for the unemployed, ” he said.