Kaduna wheat farmers decry marginalisation

Wheat farmers in Kaduna State have lamented that they were marginalised in the implementation of the National Agricultural Growth Scheme and Agro-Pocket Wheat Input Package for Dry Season farming in Nigeria designed by the African Development Bank.

They said despite cultivating up to 35, 000 hectares of land and having produced over 300 tonnes of wheat in 2022/2023 dry season farming, 80 per cent of the beneficiaries of the project are not wheat farmers directly or indirectly.

The Chairman of the Wheat Farmers Association in Kaduna, Malam Bashir Tanko called on the federal government to consider their members in the scheme for the improvement of wheat production in the state.

He disclosed that the association in the state has fulfilled all the requirements and sent a list of prospective wheat farmers to the national office of the Wheat Farmers Association for the 2023/2024 wheat input package under the GS fertiliser programme, but nothing was done.

He, however, said despite the observed problem, the association will continue to mobilise wheat farmers to sustain production with the little input they have.