On February 16th, the Kaduna State Government started giving away free agricultural tools and supplies to cooperatives.

Each cooperative, which had ten members, received a package comprising an 18-horsepower tiller, a 13-horsepower 2-inch solar-powered water irrigation machine, an 18-horsepower 3-inch solar-powered irrigation pumping machine, and gasoline-powered water irrigation pumps.

Each cooperative was also provided with a motorised backpack sprayer, one carton of herbicide, one carton of insecticide, and thirty bags of urea and NPK fertiliser, three bags per member.

Recall that on February 16, Governor Uba Sani held a grand celebration in Murtala Square to officially launch the dry season agricultural empowerment program.

At the Ministry’s central warehouse in Dankade village, Alhaji Murtala Mohammed Dabo, the Commissioner of Agriculture, began distributing the farming equipment to cooperatives that would benefit from them on Saturday. 

Speaking at the event, the Commissioner said that this is the first time the government has distributed free farm implements on this massive scale in Kaduna State’s history, describing the support as unprecedented.

Murtala disclosed that the government’s gesture is to ameliorate the pains farmers experience when irrigating their farmlands, mainly due to the rise in petrol prices.

‘’Fuelling their pumping machines every week eats into the profit margins that they would have naturally made. This massive support coming from His Excellency, the Governor, will greatly help bring down the cost of production, which should ultimately bring down prices,’’ he said.

The Commissioner disclosed that the Uba Sani administration has also procured a combined harvester, which will help farmers reduce their production costs.

‘’Last year, we had to go to Borno State to hire. The wheat farmers in Galma were paying and queueing for their turn. Today, these machines are ready to move to the field and start harvesting,’’ he added.

He claims that actual farmers who were selected regardless of their political or ethnic or religious connections make up the benefiting cooperatives.

“Today is a day of joy for all farmers in Kaduna State,” Malam Garba, the Chairman of the Dry Season Farmers Cooperative Society Zaria, told reporters.

This type of government involvement has never occurred since the establishment of Kaduna State. Everything we need to enable free dry-season farming has been provided to us.

“The Government spent a lot of billions to purchase them and gave us free of charge,” the chairman said, adding that beneficiaries should not sell the implements after advising them to use them well.