Farmer Tasks Govt On Fight Against Weeds

A cassava  farmer,
Mr.  Israel  Njoku, has called on the Rivers State Government to help farmers in the fight against weeds.
Njoku, who spoke to our correspondent Monday in Port Harcourt said fighting the  scourge  of weed had become the farmer’s nightmare over the years.
According to him, most farmers in the rural areas were faced with the challenges of   clearing the weeds, adding the control of weed was capital intensive,  especially to large cassava farmers.
He said due to lack of funds, most farmers could not afford  the cost of buying herbicides  and other incentives to boost cassava yield.
While acknowledging the efforts of the Rivers State Government  in the agricultural sector, he said  though the cassava cuttings given to  farmers was pest friendly, “weeds remain the number one enemy to the farmer”.
According to sources,  weeding  account for between 50 to 80 per cent of total labour budget of cassava growers nationwide.
A report from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, (IITA) and obtained by or correspondent, weeds, were a major threat to African farmers.
According to the report,  with the practice of traditional methods still holding sway,  children and women   were bearing the brunt of weeding.
The process invest between 200  to 500 hours annually  in clearing weeds on a hectare of cassava to prevent  economic root  loss.
Effort to control weeds in cassava farms received a boost with Nigerian engineers joining forces with experts from the IITA to seek sustainable solutions to tackling the menace.
At a meeting in Ibadan to kickoff  the collaboration recently, project  leader for cassava weed management project, Dr. Alfred Dixon, described  the  partnership as  key milestone  that would redefine  mechanical  control of weeds  in crops  such as cassava in Nigeria  and Africa  general.