The Anambra State government says it has mapped out three hundred million naira as grants to farmers in the State, under the current fiscal year.
The Commissioner for Agriculture, Mechanization and Processing, Mr. Afam Mbanefo, disclosed this at Aguleri Anambra East Local Government Area, during the official inauguration of FS Initiative eradication of extreme poverty in Africa Project
The project which aimed at reducing abject poverty in Africa is in collaboration with the Anambra
Ministry of Agriculture and the state’s Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Mines and Agriculture.
FS Initiative, an acronym for Farmers Support Initiative is a UK based charity that promotes farming in Africa and Asia, focusing on advocacy, Information, training and logistical assistance.
Addressing an assemblage of farmers, the Commissioner disclosed that the Anambra State blue print on agriculture has yielded positive results as the State’s youth participation in agriculture has
increased from eight percent in 2014 to twenty five percent while female participation stands at sixty five percent.
He urged farmers to form cooperatives so as to benefit from the State government’s largesse
According to Commissioner Mbanefo, Anambra State Ministry of Agriculture has extension workers in all the one hundred and seventy nine communities in the state hence they know every genuine farmer personally.
In his keynote address, the International Director of FS Initiative, Mr Ikenna Offor, lamented that in the midst of affluence, many Africans wallow in abject poverty leading to gross migration to more
developed countries of the world.
He opined that gross migration to western worlds is for the mere fact that the extreme poor in those countries are well taken care of whereas the reverse is the case in Africa.
Others who spoke on the occasion, including the Chairman, Anambra State Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Humphrey Ngonadi, Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Fisheries, Prof. Lucy Nwuba, the former Chairman Governor’s Committee for Anambra State Agricultural Development blueprint, Professor Chukwuemeka Omaliko and the chairman on the occasion, Chief Chika Okpala, among others, called on farmers to utilise the numerous opportunities offered by government to change the narrative.
The programme was attended by who is who in the Anambra State Agricultural sector.
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