Category Archives : DEVELOPMENT

The Gombe State Government on Friday said it created 3,500 jobs through the distribution of 1,400 vehicles to indigenes of the state.

The vehicles distributed under the state’s ‘Talba Empowerment Scheme (TES)’consist of tricycles, taxi cabs, buses and tractors.

The commissioner said the vehicles had been comprehensively insured against accidents and other mishaps.

“If anything happens to it, you get a new one, you keep operating. It is not your business that it has broken down and it cannot be repaired. We have an assembly plant for the assembly and repair of tricycles,’’ he said.

On the 200 tractors, he said the idea behind the purchase of the farm implements was to boost agriculture, adding that the modalities of the tractors lease operation were being worked.

The commissioner said the vehicles would operate within Gombe, and that security devices had been installed to tract the drivers.

He assured the people that merit would be the guiding rule for the operation of the scheme.

NAN recalled that Gov. Ibrahim Dankwambo inaugurated the vehicles, comprising 1050 tricycles and 100 Suzuki cars in Gombe on Nov. 27.

“The government reduced 20 per cent of the cost of the vehicles, while the taxi cost N2.6 million, the tricycles would be sold at N553, 021. The governor said the tractors would be sold at N4 million as against the purchase price of N7 million.

No fewer than 279, 995 farming families have benefited from the crop development programme of the African Development Bank (AfDB)-supported Community-Base Agriculture and Rural Development Project (CBARDP) in five states.

The Project Coordinator, Alhaji Ibrahim Arabi, made the disclosure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Bauchi on Thursday.

Arabi said the project was designed to improve crop productivity and better the livelihood of poor farmers and their families.

He said the benefiting states were Adamawa, Bauchi, Gombe, Kaduna and Kwara.

The project coordinator said out of the 279,995 farming families, 14,863 were trained directly on best agricultural practice that assures high productivity.

He said the remaining 265,132 benefited through farm visits and field days.

“A total of 305 hectares of land were brought under cultivation by the lead farmers while an estimated 215,000 hectares was cultivated by other members of the rural communities.

“To achieve the desired result, 205.8 tonnes of fertilizers, 15 tonnes of improved seeds and 225 litres of pesticides and herbicide were distributed to the farmers.

“This was to achieve the project objective which is mainly to contribute to food security through increase crop productivity with a view to increase farmers’ living condition.

“This is in line with the Federal Government’s Agricultural Transformation Agenda,’’ he said.

The coordinator added that CBARDP had also initiated an outreach project designed to promote the adoption of improved technology with a view to boost agricultural production.

He said that the outreach project was headed by the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan.

IITA is doing the project alongside the National Agricultural Extension Research and Liaison Service (NAERLS) and the Institute of Agricultural Research (IAR), Samaru-Zaria.

Other relevant research institutes involved in the crop development programme, includes the Lake Chad Research Institute (LCRI), Maiduguri, and National Cereals Research Institute, Badeggi.

“The outreach project adopts demonstrations of improved technologies on farmers’ fields and field days as strategies to promote five staple crops, namely maize, cowpea, soya beans, yam and cassava.

“The result was so successful that crops yield doubled and in some cases tripled.

“With the use of the improved seeds and adoption of best agricultural practices, yield of maize doubled in Adamawa, Bauchi, Gombe and Kwara.

“The yield ranged from an average of 1,500 kg per hectare to 2, 754 kg per hectare in Bauchi and up to 8000 kg per hectare in Gombe.

“Cowpea has seen a tremendous increase in Adamawa from 400kg to 2,500 kg per hectare, while in Bauchi it increases from 473 to 1, 017 kg per hectare in Kaduna.

“Soya beans were by far the most successful with its yield increasing by 333 per cent in Adamawa, 166 per cent in Bauchi.

“Gombe recorded 165 per cent increase, 249 in Kaduna, while in Kwara, it increases to 1, 733 per cent.

“The improvement in the productivity of these crops and demand for the seeds was so much that CBARDP introduced dry season community seed out growers programme in 2012/2013.’’

Source: NAN.

The Kano State Government on Thursday said it signed a N2 billion loan agreement with the Bank of Agriculture (BOA) to boost the state’s agricultural sector.

This information is contained in a statement signed by Malam Halilu Dantiye, Director of Press to the Governor, in Kano.

According to the statement, the state government will provide one billion naira as counterpart funding to enable farmers access the fund.

It stated that Gov. Rabiu Kwankwaso said the loan facility was an indication of the state government’s seriousness toward agricultural development.

Kwankwaso said the efforts would enhance job creation and enhance revenue generation of the state.

“Peasant farmers drawn from the 44 local government areas of the state will benefit from the interest-free loan.

“It will also ensure that our set goals in the agricultural sector are achieved,” Kwankwaso said.

Mr Idris Dambazau, Kano State Commissioner for Special Duties says government has completed the construction of 1,500 houses for flood victims in 2012.

Dambazzau said this in Kano on Tuesday that the figure was out of the 3,000 houses it was building for victims in three local government areas.

He said the houses were constructed at the cost of N2.4 billion in Warawa, Kunci and Makoda Local Government Areas.

Dambazzau said the State Government found it necessary to construct the houses so as to relocate the victims from the river banks and other flood prone areas.

He said as soon as the second phase of the houses currently under construction was completed, they would be allocated to the victims.

“We want to settle all the affected persons at the same time. That is why we have not allocated the houses so far completed’’, the commissioner said.

Dambazau urged the victims to be patient as the state government was making effort to ensure that the houses were completed according to contractual agreement.

The commissioner, who declined to give time frame for the completion of the project, however, disclosed that each of the houses cost N800, 000.

On this year’s flood victims, Dambazau said the state government would soon distribute relief materials donated by the National Emergency Management Agency to them.

“The Federal Government recently donated four trucks loaded with mattresses, blankets, plastics and utensils for distribution to flood victims in six local government areas in Kano municipality.

“We are just waiting for the state government’s directive to distribute the materials’’, he said.

The Edo Government said on Monday that it had registered 768 fish farmers to enable them a loan scheme under the ECOWAS Fund Accelerated Fishery Development Project.

The Commissioner for Agriculture and Natural Resources, Mr. Abdul Oroh, said this in Benin.

”A total of 768 fish farmers, fishermen, and fish distributors operating as cooperative societies have been registered with the department of fisheries to access the loan.

”They, however, had yet to access the loan due to inability to recover a previous disbursed. In pursuance of this, the ministry is working through the state fisheries loan advisory committee (SFLAC) to recover the loans.

”The committee has been involved in aggressive loan recovery so that those recently registered by government can access this facility in the expanded second phase of the project,” Oroh said.

He said that the project was being managed under a tripartite arrangement involving the ECOWAS, the federal and state governments.

Oroh said that the fund, which is domiciled at the Bank of Agriculture, was designed to improve fish production in the state.

According to him, the project has moved into its second phase with the payment of the 2011 counterpart fund contribution by the state government.

The commissioner expressed the commitment of the ministry to continue to boost agricultural development in the state through extension services and research.

Prof. AbdulGaniyu Ambali, Vice-Chancellor, University of Ilorin, on Monday said that a moringa processing factory set up by the university would produce moringa-based food products and health supplements on commercial basis.

Ambali disclosed this in his address on Monday at the second Moringa at the Leading Edge (MLE), conference organized by the Moringa Plantation Management Committee of the University.

The four-day conference has the theme: “Emergent Moringa: Roles in Heath, Wellness, Sustainable Development, Environmental Protection and Global Food Security”.

The VC pointed out that the university was keenly interested in the potential of the moringa plant.

He said that this was because of its contributions not only to health and wellbeing but also to diverse areas of the economy.

Ambali said that the conference offered an ample opportunity to unlock knowledge and provide information about the plant.

“The university is equally interested in the plant with a view to demystifying it against the backdrop of many fanciful claims made about it.

“This mystery creates skepticisms among those who are scientifically-minded about its validity,” he said.

He warned that the product had attracted abuse from unscrupulous agents and quack practitioners, hence the

need to tighten the control over the production of herbal products including moringa.

In his own address, Alhaji Bature Masari, the Director General, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), said there should be a deliberate linkage between the academia, industry and government for

efficient partnership to drive innovation.

Masari, who was represented by Dr Friday Okpara, Head, Public Private Partnership (PPP) at SMEDAN, said this would help achieve food security, employment generation and effective response to raw-material needs.

Source: (NAN)

The Joint National Association of Persons with Disabilities (JONAPWD), Delta chapter, on Thursday called on Gov. Emmanuel Uduaghan to appoint one of them as special adviser on disability matters.

Mr Omor Obruche, the Chairman of the association, made the appeal during an interview with newsmen in Asaba.

Obruche deplored the situation where the physically challenged persons were being represented by able bodied person as special adviser to the governor.

“Only the person wearing the shoes knows where it pinches. Even in our neighboring state, Edo, the special adviser to the governor on disability matters is a physically challenged person”, he said.

He stressed that it was unfair for the physically challenged to be excluded from the federal, state and local governments Subsidy Reinvestment Programme (SURE-P) appointments.

He called on the State Government to create a commission for persons with disability for proper inclusion.

“There is also the urgent need for the passage of disability bill into law, economic empowerment of the association and allocation of 20 per cent of the SURE-P programme to our members.

“We are also calling for the establishment of mass transit, social insurance and free healthcare scheme and employment for our members”, Obruche said.

He commended Uduaghan for employing no fewer than 40 persons with disabilities into public service in 2010.

The Sokoto State Government is to build a N2.5 billion dairy and meat production farm in conjunction with an Argentinean firm, an official said on Wednesday.

 

 

The Commissioner for Information in the state, Malam Danladi Bako, announced the plan to newsmen on the outcome of the State Executive Council meeting in Sokoto.

 

 

He said that the project, to be located in Rabah, headquarters of Rabah Local Government Area, would be completed in four months.

 

 

Bako said the company would include a large-scale mechanized farm, aimed at providing employment for the youth.

 

 

He said that the government would provide 60 per cent of the funds, while the firm would contribute 40 per cent.

 

 

“The state government has released one billion naira as part of its counterpart contribution to the project,” he said.

 

 

Bako explained that some components for the project had been delivered in  Sokoto.

 

 

“The site acquired for the factory will soon be cleared.

 

 

“When the project is completed, the state will have enough food for local consumption and for export.

 

 

“It will also boost the state economy and serve the need of the people and encourage mechanised agriculture.

 

 

“This will subsequently lead to the exportation of milk and meat to neighboring countries,” the commissioner said.