Anambra State FADAMA COVID-19 ACTION Recovery and Economic Stimulus, has distributed farm inputs worth over eleven point five million naira to one hundred and twenty-seven farmers across the State.
Items distributed are certified rice seeds, improved Cassava cuttings, fertilizer, agro chmicals and a day-old chick with drugs, vaccine and feeds.
The beneficiaries, who are Rice, Cassava and poultry farmers from Awka North and South Council Area of Anambra State, collected the inputs at zero cost.
It is expected that over three thousand beneficiaries would be reached within the first phase of the programme.
Inaugurating the exercise at the Agricultural Development Programme office in Awka, the Anambra State Commissioner for Agriculture, Dr. Foster Ihejiofor charged the beneficiaries to put the inputs to good use to subsidize their market costs.
Dr. Ihejiofor, who described farming as more important than medical practice, encouraged farmers to take their farming activities very seriously because, according to him, food is everyday medicine and also the best medicine.
The State Programme Coordinator of the programme Mr. Chuks Egbue said the inputs were aimed at cushioning the effects of COVID-19 on them.
Mr. Egbue, who warned that anyone caught indulging in sharp practices with the inputs will be jailed, appealed for constructive criticism to serve Anambra State farmers better.
Some of the beneficiaries, including Mrs. Victoria Anaje, a poultry farmer from Umudioka village in Awka South Local Government Area and Mr. Emmanuel Udeozor, a Rice farmer from Urum Community, in Awka North Council Area, while expressing joy over the free Agric inputs, assured of judicious use for multiplier effects and job creation .
The event came to a climax with the capturing of the profiled farmers and redemption of the inputs by farmers.
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