The Executive Governor of Benue State, Reverend Father Hyacinth Alia, has officially flagged off the Fertiliser and Farm Inputs Sales and Distribution Exercise, announcing an immediate 51 per cent subsidy on fertiliser. 

The subnational intervention slashes the retail cost of fertiliser down to ₦28,000 per bag to ease the financial overhead for rural farmers and protect Benue’s position as Nigeria’s premier food basket.

The large-scale input distribution scheme is engineered to run simultaneously across all 23 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of the state. In a public brief shared on his official Facebook page, Governor Alia explained that the deep subsidy is part of a broader strategy to expand land aggregation and lower production costs for grassroots agripreneurs. 

By directly absorbing more than half of the commercial input market cost, the state administration intends to stimulate immediate job creation and raise household incomes within agrarian communities.

To protect the integrity of the agricultural investment, the state government has set up strict transparency and tracking measures at all designated collection points. Governor Alia issued a stern warning to distribution committees and political actors, stating that any attempts at product diversion, hoarding, price exploitation, or administrative malpractice will not be tolerated. 

He emphasised that the inputs are strictly reserved for genuine, verified smallholders rather than speculative middlemen.

The farm input rollout forms one leg of Benue’s wider rural development master plan. The administration is currently executing targeted initiatives, including the grading of critical agricultural access roads, expanding solar-powered irrigation networks, and financing local agro-processing hubs. 

Encouraging local cultivators to aggressively maximise the subsidised inputs, the Governor concluded that modernising these agricultural value chains will successfully transition Benue from a domestic supplier into a leading agricultural powerhouse on the African continent.

Source: Benue News