The Plateau State Government in its efforts to resettle communities displaced by crisis across the state, has commence cultivation of 6,000 hectares of land for the upcoming farming season.
It also said it would provide seeds to farmers across the state in other to improve agricultural yield and reduce hunger to the barest minimum.
This was disclosed by the Commissioner of Agriculture, Samson Bugama while flagging off the cultivation of six thousand hectares of land particularly for displaced communities in the state, held in Mangu LGA.
He said the intervention, tagged, ‘Mechanisation Service Provision Intervention’, was targeted at communities affected by unrest and cluster groups across the state.
“Today we will be engaging the field, you can see the tractors are ready and so also all the staff of the Agric Training Service Centre and Marketing Ltd (ASTC) are equally ready.
“The strategy is to be able to see how we can provide mechanisation services to communities that have been displaced in our quest to see how we return people to their livelihoods that the crisis has taken out of the place they understand and do business.
“Governor Caleb Mutfwang in his magnanimity has decided that we engage about six thousand hectares of land, we will see how we can exceed six thousand hectares across the state.
“And we will be providing seeds for those places that have been cultivated; so that we will see how we will bring bumper harvest as we return people to their livelihoods,” he explained.
According to him, “Our priority is to start with communities that are displaced. But as much as resources allow us, we will be able to extend to the other communities; but our major goal is the resettlement of displaced communities to their livelihoods.”
On the safety of the farmers and their crops, Bugama said, “As you can see now we have the Agro-Rangers with us, and in those communities they have self-help groups that they have setup, that give early warning signals for those kinds situations, that we are going to utilise.
“This time around, we are going to ensure that government’s intervention is not wasted, we are setting a monitoring system, where we use modern technology to check incursions into such communities and we will see how we improve the system moving forward.
“But I must tell you that Governor Caleb Mutfwang is bent on ensuring that our people return back to their livelihoods. All these services government is providing are free and the seeds are also going to be free.”
Also speaking, the Managing Director/CEO of ASTC, Dr Susan Bentu, “This intervention is also for farmers in clusters, like women groups, youth, religious among others.”
Plateau Govt cultivates 6,000 hectares of land for displaced communities
