FG Plans To Register 10m Farmers Under GES

The Federal Government last Monday said that registration of farmers under its Growth Enhancement Scheme (GES) would increase to 10 million before the end of 2013.
The Minister of State for Agriculture, Dr Bukar Tijani, said this when he spoke with newsmen in Gombe, recently.
Tijani said that the number would be an increment of over 50 per cent as against the over four million farmers that were registered in 2012.
“This time around, we are able to make a national farmers database. Last year, we registered 4.2 million farmers, this year, we are going to register a minimum of 10 million farmers.
“I believe for the first time in Nigeria, we have fairly authentic database of farmers.
“And what I am talking about is not a census of people living in Abuja, Lagos or Port Harcourt,” he said.
The minister said the registration of farmers had assisted in ensuring transparency and accountability in government efforts at serving the people as beneficiaries of the scheme.
According to him, I am happy to inform importers, processing agricultural produce equipment, that the Federal Government has removed tariffs and custom charges.
“I believe that this has impacted positively between 2011 and last year, if we take rice for example, rice is being produced and processed in Nigeria.
“It is no more coming as branded rice from India, Thailand and all these other countries to be processed only in Nigeria.
“It is only from processing upward that people can benefit, what about the teeming farmers, what about those youths who want to be young rice farmers?
“So, these are part of what Mr President has done to ensure that Nigeria attains the reduction of extreme hunger,” he said.
He said the directive that rice should be produced in large quantity was to make the country self-sufficient in rice production by 2015.
“Local production of rice is over two million metric tonnes in Nigeria by small holder farmers, local varieties mixed with some improved ones.
“What we are doing now is on how we can get about 2.5 million metric tonnes of improved long grain Caroline rice.”