Bayelsa: 1,000 Rice Farmers To Benefit From Agric Loan

The Rice Farmers Asso
ciation of Nigeria (RIFAN) Bayelsa State chapter, yesterday said that over 1, 000 rice farmers in the state would benefit from the Federal Government’s agriculture loan.
The RIFAN state Chairman, Mr Ezekiel Ogbianko, told newsmen in Yenagoa that the rice farmers to benefit from the loan would be drawn from the eight local government areas of Bayelsa.
“Right now, we are preparing a database to enable us determined genuine rice farmers during and after disbursement of the loan.
“The loan is to encourage the farmers into commercial rice production in the state, especially now that the Federal Government is targeting sufficient rice production for the country by 2015.
“Yes, we have the list of all the cluster groups already on paper but we need a comprehensive and computerised database for easy processing of the loan.
“We have, however, not been told how much will be disbursed and when it will be disbursed.
“Hopefully, we will know by the time we round off with the farmers data collection,” Ogbianko said.
He called on the rice farmers to take advantage of the documentation to register their original cluster group names.
He said that registering original group names would go a long way in the efforts to have a comprehensive data as well as detecting fake rice farmers.
The RIFAN chairman urged Bayelsan youths to embrace farming and support the Federal Government’s agribusiness initiative, saying that farming was good business all over the world.
Ogbianko said that RIFAN was working hard on agricultural development and taking rice farming business to all the eight local government areas of the state.
“We have acquired over 6,000 hectares of land from Okoroba community in Nembe Local Government Area and that is a big plus for us.
“Bayelsa has good terrain for rice production and most of our land does not need irrigation for planting,” he said.
The RIFAN chairman added that it was partnering with the Bayelsa River Basin Authority to improve rice production.
He said that right now, over 100 hectares of land had been given to it by the authority for cultivation.