The Kano State Government has engaged the services of five companies to supply the state with hybrid groundnut seeds, as part of measures to revamp groundnut production in the state.
The Permanent Secretary of the state’s Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Mohammed Dankade, on Wednesday said the seeds would be distributed to the groundnut farmers during this year’s cropping season.
He said that the gesture was part of the efforts by the state government to encourage more participation of farmers in groundnut cultivation.
The permanent secretary disclosed that measures had also been taken to train the farmers on modern farming methods and to educate them on inputs application, adding that the state government had also established a farmers’ radio programme to educate and enlighten the farmers in the state.
“The state government is also doing crop mapping and trying to advise the farmers on the right and appropriate seedlings to plant,” Dankade said.
“The radio programme is being used to interact with service providers, researchers and farmers’ processors, to disseminate information on modern agricultural production technologies and the agricultural value chain approach in the most cost effective and efficient manner.”
The state government has also renovated the six agricultural training centres in Gwarzo, Rano, Danbatta and Kadawa.
This, he said, was to facilitate training and re-training of unemployed youths to embrace farming as a business.
“After the training, the youths would be given ploughs and work bulls to fast track the take off of the agricultural mechanisation programme in the state,” Dankade said.
According to him, the state government has also revived its Agricultural Supply Company (KASCO) to facilitate the supply of improved agricultural inputs like seeds, agrochemical, equipment and fertiliser.
Kano earmarked N800 million in the 2012 budget for the procurement of raw materials for fertiliser production in the state, as part of efforts to ensure adequate supply of the commodity to farmers in the state.
Already, one of the two lines of the state’s fertiliser blending plant has been reactivated.
“This line has the capacity for producing 150 tonnes of compound fertiliser per day,” Dankade said.
“The plant is registered as a service provider under the Growth Enhancement Support Services Scheme of the Agricultural Transformation Agenda.”
